icloud for Windows - stuck on initializing

Please do something. Based on this issue I have already lost some really important documents forewer, when I sign out and sign back in, as was suggestet from your IT support. Then I call your support, but their answer was, that this is not their problem, its Windows problem. And after some time your pearson on the other side of the telephone, just hang up, not once, it happend me now for at least 4 times. Unbeliviable. I am really ****** of about your IT support. Please fix this ASAP.

Had exactly the same issue. What helped was:

1. Logout from apple account on your windows machine iCloud application.
2. Login again.
3. Before starting synchronization - change the directory of iCloud. It looks like it does not have permission to write to the default one sometimes. I changed it to <user>/Documents/iCloudsomething

Works fine now.

i found the solution that worked for me after days of researching.

1. uninstalled icloud drive
2. sign out of microsoft acc from microsoft store
3. installed icloud drive
4. loged back into microsoft acc in microsoft store
5. loged into icloud drive

Now icloud drive works

I did this a couple months ago. Works. Now it is stuck again. Every time that I do it I have to resync 200+GB of files. Not a great solution for me.

Finally!!!! I got it back working! From all the comments that I read, it looks like a permissions issue.

What I did was delete all iCloud stuff, go to the Microsoft Store, and download iCloud for Windows. It got stuck. (I only turned on Password and Drive, no Photos, no Outlook).

Alright, I tried this: netsh winsock reset (without rebooting), but nothing happened.

Then I went full crazy: opened the Task Manager, went to the iCloud process, and under compatibility, set it to run as Admin! After this, I went to Windows Security and turned everything off.

Then I turned Photo Stream on, turned it off, and on again. iCloud Drive started after 1-2 seconds,

iCloud Drive after 5-10 seconds!!!! Yes, lucky so far!

#Restart# I turned Photo Stream off, and turned off the iCloud app: Settings --> Apps --> "iCloud" --> clicked on the three dots for extended options --> Turn off.

Still, everything is working. Nice!

Starting iCloud, everything is working. Turned back on Windows Defender, went through the #Restart# route again, and finally, everything I need is working: no Photo Stream, no Outlook.

I hope this solution helps all users, and to every employee at Apple and Microsoft, I wish you stub your toe on a corner. As****** Microsoft

I honestly can't understand how they though that putting out more terrible windows software would convince people to buy macs.

Hey apple - we understand the issue isn't our windows PCs, it is your abysmal software. Maybe consider testing things before you release them in the future so you don't waste everyone's time.

Thanks :)

I tried everything in this thread and nothing worked until I saw RayRay-7's post. I signed out of iCloud and then right-clicked on the iCloud app and ran as an administrator (Like RayRay-7, I was already an administrator) and bingo! This was for a client of mine. My client spent 90 minutes on the phone with Apple tech support and the only way they could get it to work was by creating a new temp Windows profile. I had no interest in recreating my clients profile. Thanks RayRay-7!

I had exactly the same problem. Here is what solved the problem:

• Log off from iCloud on windows
• Install iTunes on windows
• Restart
• Login with itunes to your account
• Login in iClouds and change the iCloud local folder

Tried everything here and nothing work. For me, at least, it seems to be some form of socket error. This fixes the issue:

1) log out of iCloud

2) start a CMD window as administrator

3) type: netsh winsock reset

3) log back into iCloud

Found it at: https://www.guidingtech.com/fix-icloud-windows-10-keeps-asking-password/

I once was reading this thread, since I got the same problem. Despite disabling iCloud which then deletes all files, I tried all hints on this thread. A few days ago, I resolved this issue for me in another, IMHO, interesting way.

My problems started after I realized that putting 50K+ files from emails created by https://thehorcrux.com is too much for iCloudDrive. I deleted files first on macOS and this made Windows (the latest Win10 build) stuck in syncing, maybe just too many files. I then deleted files on Windows directly. iCloud Drive sync, bookmarks and photos sync worked after this for a while and then stopped syncing on Windows completely, telling me "Initializing..." Both macbooks, iPhone and iPad kept working as expected. I checked the version of iCloud on Windows : it was 14.2. After a search, I landed on this thread. As mentioned, no hints from here worked for me and I already mentally decided that a bigger work is coming since deleting the whole iCloud and related files on Windows would mean a lot of manual syncing and sorting.

Before crashing all this one me, I first synced all files on the iCloud Drive on Windows with "Syncovery" to a NAS share. All worked well, not error reported. I then thought that a second copy as ZIP archive would make me feel much better :-). I use 7-zip. 7-zip refused to create an archive from iCloud Drive, reporting that "the cloud operation was unsuccessful" in the folder "<path to iCloud Drive>/.Trash". I host iCloud Drive in my home folder on the "C:" drive on Windows which is default, IIRC. Error reports by 7-zip confused me, since "Syncovery" did not report anything whereas I asked to take the whole folder, and not only its content, where ".Trash" might be considered as hidden and to be skipped.

I wanted to see what iCloud actually considers to be in "Trash". I first logged in on iclould.com and realized that iCloud knows only two files as candidates for a recovery on Drive. On Windows, the ".Trash" folder had tons of files which I deleted over a longer period of time. Interestingly, ".Trash" does not exist in the iCloud folder on macOS, since, I think, the global system "Bin" is used for this.

I decided to clean ".Trash" on Windows completely and did this form elevated (admin) command line with "rmdir /s /q .Trash", and then recreated this folder with "mkdir .Trash" but from another command line with my regular permissions. For a while, I was busy to check if 7-zip works again, but then I quickly realized that the status window from iCloud Drive stopped showing "Intializing..." on its own and actually counted down files left to sync very quickly. Wow! 8-) It works again! Bookmarks were synced again in Firefox, and iCloud Photos showed up in a sync in Lightroom! Yeah! It is back, no hassle with file sorting!

Try this, it might work for you too. I wish some engineering folks from Apple would read this too. I can gladly send some logs if I knew which. I think some weird things happened to ".Trash" which both system did not stand, so to say ;-)

Good luck!

A million thank-yous for sharing this article link, i had been having iCloud Window 11 app problems for a while and the constant re-asking me for my password was super annoying that i disabled the app completely (and also resulting in Apple making me reset my password as it considered it a treat, which is good to know the Apple iCloud account protection works). After a recent update i decided to try again, but after signing in the iCloud app was stuck in "initializing" and nothing was syncing.

Read the above article and decided to try the "run as administrator" option for the iCloud app (even though my user account is an admin user account) and then... AWESOME, all working... :)

Honestly, i spent ages searching for possible solutions to this, or why the iCloud app wasn't playing nicely with Windows 11. It was making me question my decision on getting a MS laptop, after a lot of deliberation i decided to replace my 15 y/o MacBook Pro with a shinny new Surface Laptop 5 , as i read that new MacBooks cannot be upgraded or have components replaced - which is the exact thing that had kept my previous one in use for 15 years !!!?? (thanks Apple !). I use a Windows PC for work and Windows 10/11 OS seems to be really great (mostly) to use, so i took the plunge. Plus the Surface Laptop 5 reminds me of the good ol' MB days when they were aluminium - so pretty.

i was worried i would forever be consigned to the thought "now you have a PC, you will have to using iCloud via the web". This worked for me - I hope it does for others too.

Yup… hence I dumped it for Onedrive. They had a similar issue years ago (to do with onedrive not logging you in) at work so I avoided it back then at the risk of losing files. Now Onedrive pops up if you’re not connected so you can deal with it. Sorely missing that in iCloud. Recently iCloud started popping up when I boot, but when I try to login it fails each time…. So after a few weeks of this amateur show I uninstalled it. Life goes on and this isn’t worth the worry. Onedrive for the win.

For me, at least, it seems to be some form of socket error. This fixes the issue:

1) log out of iCloud

2) start a CMD window as administrator

3) type: netsh winsock reset

3) log back into iCloud

[Edited by Moderator] 

Did you see my post about logging out of the iCloud app and close it down. When you open it - right-click and select “run as administrator” this fixed the issue for me.

however subsequently updates have re-prompted for my password over and over which led to my Apple account being locked (no access for 2-3 days and all rescue methods failed). This happened twice so now I don’t use the iCloud app anymore - only via the web browser.

hope the admin thing works for you :)

This has been bothering me for like a year, so when i figured it out for my machine I rushed over here.

What worked for me is if when you click into the little arrow next to where it says "on" in the panel on the newest UI, you can then change the folder. If you delete the icloud drive folder in that explorer window that pops up, then save the new location in the same spot, it will adjust how the address looks in the "Drive Settings" menu.

For me it went from O://iCloudDrive to O:/iCloudDrive

Immediately started syncing right there. Hope this works for you!

No word on this? It's been stuck initializing since February 2024, like 5 months now. Tried uninstalling and reinstalling with no help, rechoosing a folder etc. also doesn't work, deleting the folder entirely and starting a new one, no go.

Does this product even work or is it abandonware and i missed the notice?