What is iCloud Drive?
iCloud Drive stores your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, images, and other kinds of documents in iCloud so you can access them 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. iCloud File Sharing lets you share documents and files with other iCloud users and work on them.
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 your Apple ID. If you don’t select the iCloud Drive feature on a device, the documents and data on that device aren’t kept up to date with the documents and data on your other devices that have iCloud Drive turned on.
Mac apps that support iCloud Drive include the Finder, TextEdit, Preview, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, iMovie, GarageBand, QuickTime Player, and some third-party apps. The Pages, Numbers, Keynote apps and iCloud Drive on iCloud.com also support iCloud Drive, and you can use them from a web browser on any Mac or Windows computer.
iCloud Drive also stores data for Mac apps, and it keeps the data up to date across your other devices set up for iCloud Drive. For example, Safari uses iCloud Drive to store your bookmarks, Reading List, and iCloud Tabs (webpages open on your other devices). Mail uses iCloud Drive to keep your rules, signatures, flag names, and Smart Mailboxes up to date on your Mac computers that have iCloud Drive turned on. Mail also uses iCloud Drive to keep your VIPs and Previous Recipients list the same on your Mac computers (OS X v10.8 or later) and iOS devices (iOS 6 or later) that have iCloud Mail and Contacts turned on.
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. Those documents and data are then available on all your devices with iCloud Drive turned on.
For information about using iCloud Drive on your iOS device, see the “Share files from iCloud Drive” section of the user guide for iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. For information about using iCloud Drive on your Windows computer, see iCloud Help.