Store documents with iCloud Drive

iCloud Drive stores your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, images, and other kinds of documents in iCloud so you can access these documents from any of your devices set up for iCloud Drive. It allows your apps to share documents so you can work on the same file across multiple apps. For more information, see What is iCloud Drive?.

You can use iCloud Drive on Mac computers (OS X v10.10 or later), iOS devices (iOS 8 or later), and Windows computers with iCloud for Windows (Windows 7 or later required). Your computers and devices must be signed in to iCloud with the same Apple ID. iCloud Drive is available in Pages, Numbers, Keynote, GarageBand, and other apps that support it.

You can also use iCloud Drive on iCloud.com. From a web browser on a Mac or Windows computer, you can upload and download files, delete files, organize files in folders, and rename files.

Set up iCloud Drive and migrate from Documents & Data

Before you can store documents in iCloud Drive, your iCloud account must be upgraded to use iCloud Drive. You may have done this when you initially set up your Mac or your iOS device. If you didn’t upgrade during setup, you can upgrade at any time simply by turning on iCloud Drive on your Mac, iOS device, or Windows computer.

Important: If you have devices set up for Documents & Data before you upgrade to iCloud Drive, your documents and data stored in iCloud are copied to iCloud Drive when you upgrade. Then those documents and data are available on all your devices set up for iCloud Drive.

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click iCloud.
Open iCloud preferences for me
Turn on iCloud Drive.
You’re asked to confirm that you want to upgrade your iCloud account to iCloud Drive from Documents & Data. If you’re not asked about upgrading to iCloud Drive, your iCloud account is already upgraded.

After upgrading to iCloud Drive on one computer or iOS device, you can turn on iCloud Drive on your other computers and iOS devices. If you don’t turn on iCloud Drive on a device, its documents and data aren’t kept up to date with documents and data on your devices that are set up for iCloud Drive.

iCloud Drive basics

Everything in iCloud Drive is organized in folders like other folders you work with on your Mac. Some folders are created automatically for the apps that support iCloud Drive, such as Preview, TextEdit, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. You can create new folders to organize the items you add to iCloud Drive.

To work with files and folders in iCloud Drive, click iCloud Drive in a Finder sidebar.

Put documents in app folders: The app folders in iCloud Drive are created automatically for apps that support iCloud Drive on any of your devices. You can move documents into these folders and create folders inside them, but they can only contain documents the app can open. For example, the Preview folder can contain PDFs and different kinds of image files but not a movie or a Zip archive.
Move items into folders: Drag files and folders to a different folder in iCloud Drive or to same level of iCloud drive as the app folders.
Move items to your Mac and remove them from iCloud Drive: Drag files and folders from iCloud Drive to your Mac. The items are copied to your Mac and removed immediately from iCloud Drive on all your devices set up for iCloud, and they’re removed from iCloud Drive on iCloud.com. If you change your mind, you can drag items back to iCloud Drive.
Copy items to iCloud Drive: Drag files and folders from your Mac to iCloud Drive. You end up with copies of the items in both places. The ones in iCloud Drive are kept up to date on all your devices set up for iCloud Drive.

You can also use iCloud Drive when you open a document or save a new document in apps that support iCloud Drive.

For more information, see Folder basics and Delete files and folders.

Move a saved document to iCloud Drive

In apps that let you save documents in iCloud Drive, such as TextEdit and Preview, you can also move saved documents from your Mac to iCloud Drive. For more information, see Save documents.

With the document open in the app, choose File > Move To.
Click the pop-up menu, choose iCloud Drive or [AppName]—iCloud, then click Move.
If you choose iCloud Drive, the document moves to the main level of iCloud Drive.
If you choose [AppName]—iCloud, the document moves to the app folder in iCloud Drive.

iCloud Drive documents are available on all your devices set up for iCloud Drive, and you can still edit them when you’re not connected to the Internet.

If you can’t copy, move, or save a document to iCloud Drive

If you can’t move or save a document to iCloud Drive, your iCloud storage space may be full. The document stays on your Mac, and is uploaded to iCloud Drive when space becomes available.

To get more space, you can upgrade your storage. You can also remove items you don’t need to store in iCloud Drive. For more information, see Manage iCloud storage.

Remove a saved document from iCloud Drive

In apps that let you save documents in iCloud Drive, such as TextEdit and Preview, you can also move saved documents from iCloud Drive to a folder on your Mac. Removing a document from iCloud deletes it from iCloud Drive and from your other devices set up for iCloud Drive. It’s also no longer available in iCloud Drive on iCloud.com.

With the document open in the app, choose File > Move To.
Click the pop-up menu, choose a folder on your Mac, then click Move.