iCloud For windows 11 does not sync and appears to stall at log in

Thanks for the Help. Apple really needs to fix this ID problem. They must have changed something because it worked before with icloud and just stopped working out of the blue.

Hi - thanks for this solution - it actually works. I have an iCloud account that was created from a legacy [user]@mac.com account. During the transition of services at apple this became a [user]@me.com account. I had been trying to sign in with the [user]@me.com version of the account name. Even though this appeared to work and iCloud for Windows displayed my real name and even the legacy mac.com username it never achieved sync with iCloud. Resetting iCloud for windows and signing in with the older mac.com username worked for me.

Unfortunately this did not work for me. Everything Randomly stopped syncing because... ya know, apple just works right??

changed my primary email to all 3 different emails i have on my account and none of them work when signing into them, icloud just hangs when trying to sync anything and icloud drive wont even turn on.

so now I dont have icloud on my pc. Thanks apple!

My friend, you just save my life...

I installed and uninstalled a few times the app, looked at the firewall config, host files, asked to the Apple Store in my country, etc....

Finally, I am back with my iCloud Drive sync!

Thanks a lot!

Sorry, I'm still not getting this? My Apple account shows my original Icloud.com email as an ALIAS to my primary Apple account. Can anyone explain this is very simple terms what I need to try and do? Better help, Apple support could just fix the issue.

Yes, exactly. That's what helped in my case. Just adding a new icloud email address and defining this new address as the primary one. Logging in with this address into iCloud for Windows helped. No other measures were needed.

Regards

Stefan

Not necessarily correct, my original icloud was a @gmail and I changed that to @icloud for continuity.

That said, I have icloud on a Win10 pc and Win11 laptop; password syncing stopped working between my 3 devices (iPhone). Uninstalled, rebooted, and reinstalled was unable to enable Passwords and Keychain. Sometimes the icloud app would simply open as an endless logging in loop.

• I closed the icloud app window and re-opened icloud from taskbar (by the clock and double-click icon). Went to account details and sign out.
• MAKE SURE to disable VPN -- logging into icloud and authenticating password feature MUST be on the same network between your iphone and PC/laptop -- mine is activated on the cell phone.
• MAKE SURE to disable cellular or go into airplane mode and turn Wi-Fi back on.

Log back into icloud, then click password, then log in icloud again (will be reprompted) and then authenticate.

Thank you for this! It sparked a thought, and sure enough, here's an alternative that worked for me:

1. Open the Settings App on your ios device.
2. Open Apple Account options (first selection)
3. Open "Sign-In & Security"
4. Under "Email and Phone Numbers," set the email address you typically use to sign into iCloud (i.e. @icloud.com, @me.com, etc.) as your "Primary email"
5. On iCloud for Windows, be sure to login using what you set as your "Primary email."

I do not understand. How can you have two different email addresses associated with getting to your iCloud information?

I only remember using one email address. Using that information, I still cannot get iCloud for windows on Windows 11 to work.

What other solutions might I pursue?

Hello all,

I found a solution which works at least for me and I hope that it can also solve the problem for others. I added a new e-mail-address to my Apple account in the format X.Y@icloud.com. Then I defined this new e-mail-address to be the "primary" one. After doing that, I started iCloud for Windows and synchronisation started immediately.

Unfortunately, calendar synchronisation with Outlook (classic) still did not work. I could solve this issue as well by creating a new outlook profile and set up the above mentioned icloud-mail-adress as the first account in this profile. Afterwards, I added my other mail accounts. With the new Outlook profile and the correct sequence in creating the mail accounts synchronisation with the iCloud calendar works.

The original poster, yes, thats whay they said

But farther down user Bj made the connection and it starts with your IOS device whether its the iphone or tablet.

go to Settings -> Apple Account (very first option next to the largest icon) —> Sign-in & Security —> look at the accounts at top. Whichever says primary email, that’s what you use BUT many folks are just changing that if its @gmail, @me or @mac to the @icloud

IF you already have an @icloud listed but it is NOT primary email, tap on Edit —> red circle/white line to “delete”. Follow prompt and enter your @icloud. Apple will switch it and leave the @gmail in-place.

Hi guys, happy 2025! So I' have this same problem and I've tried all this entire tips and tricks trying to solve it without any success. As reported on icloud drive do not sync on win 11 - Apple Community, and Im a subcriber of the cloud+ 6TB, so I tried to run too on new pcs with fresh win11 and got the same bug.

at this time I'm using my Iphone to compress every folder of my lot of works and using the web version of Icloud Drive to download every the zip files to another in a Dropbox folder at win 11 pc - just sadly migrating all my stuff.

As a Brazilian with portuguese/latin language, I saw when the folders are umcompressed, a CHARSET MISTYPE On files and folders names when it originally has an latin characters, like a bug when you use windows files inside linux/bsd/unix files without conversion. I think that maybe one of the root of these bugs on this new version of Icloud drive software and ecosystem too.

Well done, this has bothered me for weeks.

I was using my @icloud.com login, but turns out my primary was an @me.com address. Changing to the primary, made it sync again.

Thanks

I switched my primary email account to @icloud.com on my iPhone by literally following the steps listed out by bjenkins1976.

I signed in for the first time just to reply. THANK YOU!!! I searched for a solution for weeks. No recommendation was helping. I was devastated, had nearly giving up and then stumbled over your post. My ID is also xx@mac.com, which I never use to sign in. But now everything works as intended.

What a relief. Thanks again mate for taking the time and posting the solution to your (our) problem.