icloud drive does not sync from my PC

We ran into this issue with a user who had already established GB's worth of data in iCloud drive. After setting him up on a new Windows 10 laptop he'd installed and began syncing his iCloud account. His photos came down just fine but the data in his iCloud drive never populated for him. I tried various tricks (deselecting iCloud drive and turning it back on, changing the Auto Software update to daily) but ultimately ended up in the task manager looking at the iCloud drive process using 10% of the CPU and a consistent 2 Mbps of the disk. It turns out there's some sort of database file (ckcachedatabase.db) that was being built at an incredibly slow pace. I told him to keep an eye on that folder and eventually once the file stopped growing his data began to come down into his iCloud drive folder.

The ckcachedatabase.db file was located in C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Local\Apple Inc\CloudKit\iCloudDrive.

I hope this helps anybody else struggling with the lack of a sufficient UI with the iCloud software.

So I turned off two-factor authentication (appleid.apple.com) altogether, but with no success.

As of June 15th, if you wish to use a secure Apple service such as iCloud Mail or contacts/calendars, with a 3rd party app like Outlook or Thunderbird, you MUST use an app specific password.

Using app-specific passwords - Apple Support

In order to generate an app specific password you MUST have either 2 Step Verification or 2 Factor Authentication enabled for your Apple ID.

Two-factor authentication for Apple ID - Apple Support

Two-step verification for Apple ID - Apple Support

Assuming this worked for you until about 3 weeks ago, as the OP is over a year old..

As of June 15th, if you wish to use a secure Apple service such as iCloud Mail or contacts/calendars, with a 3rd party app like Outlook or Thunderbird, you MUST use an app specific password.

Using app-specific passwords - Apple Support

In order to generate an app specific password you MUST have either 2 Step Verification or 2 Factor Authentication enabled for your Apple ID.

Two-factor authentication for Apple ID - Apple Support

Two-step verification for Apple ID - Apple Support

Dear @jon_leigh,

iCloud Drive finally worked on my Windows 7 computer with the recent iCloud 7.2 for Windows update. Pls see my post below for further details if you still have the same problem. Good luck!

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8061827?answerId=32730480022#32730480022

I am having the same problem. If I cannot get this to work, I am going to have to go back to Microsoft One Drive which always works. I paid for the extra storage and now I cannot use it if I cannot synch my files.

After twenty years of nothing but Apple hardware, I switched to Windows 10...and I cannot access any of the files on iCloud Drive either. One thought is the dreaded two-step verification. Often with other older devices, to the Apple ID password, you must tack on the six-digit verification code sent to other Apple devices connected to the same Apple ID. Unfortunately none of these efforts worked either. So I turned off two-factor authentication (appleid.apple.com) altogether, but with no success. I've even tried to sign out and back in to iCloud services multiple times on my Windows system. No luck with that approach either. As mentioned above, I've tried changing the Apple Software Update setting to "daily," too...with no luck. I wanted to keep one foot with Apple still -- at least my iOS devices. However, without access to iCloud drive on my non-Apple device, it seems I will be forced to simply switch everything to MS. Thanks Apple.

Any word from Apple on a fix for this? Rapidly running out of patience and going to cancel my extra iCloud storage and switch to Google or Onedrive if there is no solution or official acknowledgement of the problem.

All,

as mentioned by "Why do computers all suck" the solution that worked for me is turning the sync preferences to daily in the software update app on win10 that is automatically installed with icloud on win10. My issue was that though all icloud files transferred fine, any changes made on the win10 side did never sync to icloud.

Now any changes made on either side - macOS or win10 - sync correctly though speed depends on network traffic apparently and other things you are up/downloading at that moment.

reg,

wolf

Thanks for taking the time to share, i encountered the same issue.

I agree that the Windows icloud app could use the status "building database" or at least something better than "Updated x minutes a go" which suggests it's not doing anything at the moment. (Also a "Update Now" button would be nice, but that's another discussion)

thanks Sean, i encountered this issue as well with a user who had roughly 50GB of data in iCloud Drive. it was pretty frustrating to reinstall, try various different methods of troubleshooting worth hours on end only to find out its not an user-end issue and there isn't much else we can do.

Apple should definitely look into this if its causing the de-sync issues

My problem is similar. However the database grows to over 500GB and my C: drive runs out of space. Is there a way to specify a different location for it? Like on the same external drive that I have specified for the download folder.

What app builds the database? Could it be a Google app? I am using Google backup and sync.

YES! That´s the answer. After changing this option in Apple Software Uptade, iCloud Drive started syncing immediatelly.

i found the apple software update and changed it to daily. still not syncing between platforms. whats the use of cloud service if files ddont sync immediately.

Howdy jon_leigh,

I understand that files and folders created on your Windows PC aren't always appearing on iCloud.com or your iOS devices. Fortunately the steps outlined below can help restore functionality between your PC and iCloud.

What if my files don't update to iCloud?

Check these things first:

• Make sure that you have an active Internet connection on your Mac and on your iOS device.
• Sign in to iCloud on all of your devices, and turn on iCloud Drive.
• Install the latest versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. See which versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote you can use with iCloud Drive.
• Make sure that you have enough iCloud storage. If you exceed your limit, you can upgrade your iCloud storage.
• Create a new document and save it to see if it uploads to iCloud. If it does, see if the other documents start uploading.

If you tried these steps and your files still don’t upload to iCloud:

1. Stay signed in to iCloud.
2. Save your updated files to a different folder on your Mac or PC.
3. Contact Apple Support.

Get help using iCloud Drive
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203052

Regards!

I have had this same very frustrating issue for a long time and I finally got it to work on my Windows 7 PC! I simply changed the updates from weekly to daily.

To fix this open Apple Software Update, hit cancel when it says checking for updates, select Edit Preferences, set to Daily and hit apply. If you are lucky this will fix the problem.