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How to upload a document to iCloud from Mac?

Hi. I have successfully shifted my MobileMe data to iCloud. Hurrah. I am intrigued by having the documents "up there" and synced to all my devices. My question is this: is it possible to upload a document from my Mac, so I can later work on it on my iPad? If so, how do I do it? Thanks for any hints that you may provide.


Whatever documentation I have seen seems to show how to upload a document using iOS, but what about from my iMac?

iPhone 3GS, iOS 4.3.3

Posted on Oct 12, 2011 4:14 PM

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64 replies

Oct 13, 2011 4:10 AM in response to Eric Carpenter

Now I am totally confused. My iphone and Ipad have the document I just created, synced. But are you saying I cannot just load it into Pages on Macbook. edit it and have it automatically go to Ipad etc. I assumed that was the whole point.


Also is there a doc describing icloud and its operation?


I assume this is going to eat up my usage on phone and Ipad at a heck of a rate.



? I have upgraded Pages on all machines.

Oct 13, 2011 4:57 AM in response to Catsman

I join in here. I was working on a document on the iPad, and the document was already stored on my iDisk. Everything synced between the iPhone 3GS and the iPad, but when I opened the document on my iMac, no changes were visible.

Reading around, I found that I could go to iCloud and from there I downloaded the document and opened it in Pages on my iMac. Back to the iPhone to see if the changes appeared there, but no.


I am not sure if there is something I have overlooked, but it should not be anything to overlook. It should work just like that, like it does between my iPhone and iPad, without having to think about something to look after. That is how I understood it. But if this is correct, why is it not working with Pages on the iMac? Because it is not an iOS-device?

If that is it, I must say I am disappointed. I hope someone can shed some light upon this.

Oct 13, 2011 5:13 AM in response to Wilfred Hildonen

What puzzles me, in addition to the problem outlined by many in this discussion, is the "location" of the files as well. In the iOS devices the documents are stored in the apps themselves (there being no "Finder" or a file storing structure in iOS devices), so where will the iCloud push my documents on my Mac--which "location" in my Finder? Which folder? I can see the file in my Finder, of course, but is there is any method involved regarding where the document is programmed to go and lodge itself in my Mac?


In my feeble attempts, I found that I actually have to download the file from iCloud, which then takes it to the download folder--from where I can put it wherever I want. Hmm. But then if I edit it further on my Mac, it won't automatically go to my iOS devices, unless I put it manually again into iCloud. So "it just works" doesn't seem to make sense to me. I am sure I am missing something, but the process is far from automatic where the Mac is concerned.

Oct 13, 2011 5:21 AM in response to Atman

No, the idea was that it should work "just like that" and as long as one begins to wonder what one has missed, they have failes. Browsing around, it actually looks like that it doesn't work on the Mac. The only way is as described, to download and upload from iCloud, but that isn't exactly what people were looking forward to. That is a huge step backwards as it was easier to use iDisk, for instance. Or Dropbox for that matter.


As I have suggested in other threads, as many as possible should give them feedback on this:


http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages.html


Hopefully, that would make them go back to the drawing table and work on this:) The spirit of Jobs should be hovering over them and whisper "Not good enough" in their ears!

Oct 13, 2011 7:17 AM in response to Atman

Folks, I thought the same thing, that it would be like Evernote for all the iwork applications, which is how it was initially portrayed. Having said that, I don't understand where the "drag and drop" functionality is on the Mac. I have selected "documents and data" but there's no explanation how to upload it to iCloud. Worse, when I hit the ? for Help, it comes up with a blank page saying I'm not connected to the Internet, even though I am, as evidenced by this post. Can anyone at least explain the drag and drop on Mac. I went to Finder, thinking it would be there like iDisk, but iDisk is gone and there's no replacement.

Oct 14, 2011 7:18 PM in response to Atman

I see the same problem. I held off starting with DropBox or such servide to give iCloud a chance. I am currently dragging entire folders between a USB stick and various computers to keep them synched. I saw that DropBox offers the integration functionality as if it is a disk drive for almost all devices and applications and thought "hey, neat!" Then I heard Apple was bringing a cloud service into being that was better than Mobile Me and thought "hey, I can bring synching my consumer matter and business matter into the same service and leave behind having to use DropBox, GMail, EverNote, and moving towards finding a to do list app that works across all platforms too with my services fractured among many providers.


You would not believe the huge number of professionals and entrepreneurs I see pulling out Apple products like MacBooks or with iMacs on their desks in offices and at front service counters. This is a HUGE market segment and is growing by leaps and bounds both for software reliability and hardware solidness and elegance in operation. And they are on-the-move professionals that need access across all platforms just like I do.


I was also encouraged when from stories that it appeasr that Steve Jobs (bless) took the Mobile Me crowd into the back office a while ago and collectively smacked them across their heads and said "you blew it! Now get it right!". They appear to have gotten it right for consumers but left loyal professionals and entrepreneurs behind again.


The main drawback for iCloud to replace iDisk and use for documents for larger users are:


Fail #1 - no iDisk-like functionality for desktop machines. A Web-browser drag-and-drop approach is NOT a substitute for a fully functional data storage system. For example, I have four main business directories and numerous sub directories with a few hundred documents. Its only half the size of the cloud storage space offered. But have you ever had 100s of documents all on one scroll screen with no directory structure and had to drag and drop anything you want to read or work on to a desktop, work on it, save it back to the desktop, and then drag it back to the Web tile interface all day long? I haven't had that experience yet and don't intend to even try. I shudder just at the thought of trying it.


Fail #2 - iCloud functionality works for both most recent versions of Windows (and for Windows 8 Beta for all I know). But it doesn't even give a boo to Snow Leopard. I have one Lion machine. But a number of us that are still on Snow Leopard because app developers haven't released patches for moves to Lion, haven't released new versions for Lion, or even worse, have release new versions for Lion but made them prohibitively expensive to change to and/or made it impossible to migrate data to from the old version. I know this is the software makers' problem, but leaving the Snow Leopard crowd which is huge behind or forcing them to virtualize Snow Leopard to keep applications functioning just so they can have Lion for iCloud is a little silly. Especially when the service works for all current flavours of Windows post XP. (and Snow Leopard is as young as or younger than the Windows versions supported).


As a result I'm pretty much thinking of giving iOS 5 upgrade, Lion upgrade to iCloud use, move to iCloud services including abandoning current third party services for email, calendar, storage, note syncing, etc, and upgrade to iPhone 4S a pass because everything is working fine right now in their current iteration and it appears Apple got iCloud right for consumers but not for on-the-go professional users (I know a lot of doctors and engineers currently disappointed in this). Its use for consumer purposes like media is nice, but I am able to make do fine with the previous version of syncing and using pre-iCloud...so what is the compelling reason to upgrade and try? Not here as of yet...and that's a pretty bad message to come from someone with a MacBook Air, an iMac, a MacBook Pro, a Mac Mini, two iPhones, and an iPad in his business and home environment.

Oct 15, 2011 6:22 PM in response to twolfe81

I called tech support the day that icloud was released and pointed out this same flaw -- that iCould was did not work for the macbook. His initial recation was that I was mistaken, but as the called progressed, he too was amazed (appalled?) that iCould was not macbook-enabled.


In fact, if you do not have a IOS device, you cannot use iCloud with pages, keynote, or numbers. I had just purchaed a MacBook air with the hope that I could use it for my documents on my main computer and on my Air. Even the people in the Mac Store thought that iCould was the answer. (Isn't a Macbook Air a mobile device?)


So what is this all about? Certainly, I can send a "suggestion" but it seems to me either a terrible oversight, or that the who thing is not currently bug-free possible given how the new Lion complexity in handling documents and document versions.


At any rate, I'm was disappointed and I simply disabled it as I'm not using my iPhone or iPad to write complex documents or spreadsheets or keynotes. I started using DROPBOX now and it seems to be the best solution for now.

Oct 16, 2011 11:21 PM in response to Atman

the sync process from iphone to icloud stores the documents in your Mac in a hidden location :


~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~pages/Documents


If you use Pages for Mac to save your files there, it will be instantly show up on icloud.com and also on your iOS5 pages.


Each iCloud enabled app on iOS5 has a folder in "Mobile Documents" like com~apple~numbers , com~apple~keynote..

How to upload a document to iCloud from Mac?

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