Do I have an icloud account and is there anything in it?

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Do I have an icloud account and is there anything in it?

I have never knowingly set up or stored anything in an iCloud account.

But when I click on iCloud in system preferences it gives me the option to 'sign out'.

Does this mean that I am logged into an iCould account? If so, how do I find out what is in it? Have I been inadvertently saving stuff in it?

I understand that 5gb of storage is all you get for free. It says that I have 5gb storage available. Does this mean that I am logged into my iCloud account but it's empty?

On a possibly related note. I have done a reset and reinstall of OSX on an old Mac I want to sell. But when I log back into it using my ID all my bookmarks are still in safari. I know that these bookmarks are not on the computer and are simply saved to my apple ID. But are these bookmarks saved to iCloud? If so where are they in iCloud if I still have the full 5gb storage space available?

PS: For some reason when I tried to post this question in the iCloud community it told me that I wasn't allowed to so that's why I'm trying the El Capitain forum. Many thanks for any help.

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Aug 29, 2016 11:20 AM

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Answer 1

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FoxFifth

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Aug 29, 2016 12:24 PM in response to DuffPaddy

The following has information on how you can manage your iCloud storage space: Manage your iCloud storage - Apple Support

You can also use a computer and log in to https://www.icloud.com/ using your Apple ID to see most of the things that may be stored in iCloud but it won't include iPhone/iPad backups and a few other things.

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Answer 2

DuffPaddy Author

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Aug 29, 2016 12:23 PM in response to FoxFifth

Thanks for that. It has cleared up a few questions I had. But I'm still a little confused as to whether or not I actually have iCloud set up. The iCloud.com link posted above lets me log in with my apple ID. But there's nothing stored in it. I still have 5gb of storage available.

Is that because I don't have any of these options in system preferences > iCloud ticked? If I want to save things to iCloud do I need to tick these preferences and if I don't want anything saved to iCloud do I leave them all unticked?

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Answer 3

FoxFifth

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Aug 29, 2016 1:14 PM in response to DuffPaddy

Not having those options selected is at a minimum a partial reason. If you put a checkmark in front of Contacts in that window then if you logged into https://www.icloud.com/ you would see that your Contacts were synced to iCloud. Most things but not everything that is synced to iCloud is counted against your 5GB storage -- I'm not certain if Contacts for example counts against the storage.

Leaving those things unchecked will mean that you won't have them automatically sync to iCloud from your Mac; you could however still have things from other devices sync (for example, if you have an iPhone) or you could manually upload something to iCloud Drive or Photos using an internet browser. But if you only have a Mac and if you haven't intentionally uploaded something manually using a browser, that screen pretty well covers it.

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Answer 4

DuffPaddy Author

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Aug 29, 2016 1:19 PM in response to FoxFifth

Thanks again, my iCloud account actually states that I have 10.5 mb of documents stored in it. But I cannot find a way of actually looking at these documents to see what they are. Any ideas?

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Answer 5

FoxFifth

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Aug 29, 2016 1:26 PM in response to DuffPaddy

No idea. Mine shows 14.7MB but I only have about 3.5MB of documents in iCloud Drive and my Photos and Backup numbers both match between that screen and the details that I see when I click the Manage button at the lower right in the screenshot.

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Answer 6

DuffPaddy Author

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Aug 29, 2016 1:37 PM in response to FoxFifth

Very strange. When I click that manage button all I get is this.

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Answer 7

FoxFifth

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Aug 29, 2016 3:35 PM in response to DuffPaddy

That looks like what I would expect if you don't have any of the preferences turned on and nothing syncing via iCloud. Mine is the same except Backups has a size because I backup my iPhone to iCloud, plus mine shows iCloud Drive and Photos as I use both of those.

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Answer 8

DuffPaddy Author

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Aug 29, 2016 3:58 PM in response to FoxFifth

So do you think the empty backups file accounts for the 10.5 mb?

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Answer 9

FoxFifth

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Aug 29, 2016 4:08 PM in response to DuffPaddy

No idea but as I indicated in a post above I also have a discrepancy of about 11 MB.

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Answer 10

DuffPaddy Author

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Aug 30, 2016 12:52 AM in response to FoxFifth

Hahah but don't you want to know why you have such a discrepancy? I don't really like the fact that I may be storing private data somewhere that I don't appear to be able to access. The only other explanation is that this data might be my downloads from iTunes? But I would love to know for sure.

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Answer 11

Barney-15E

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117,148 points

Aug 30, 2016 4:46 AM in response to DuffPaddy

What makes you automatically assume it is private data?

You could try logging into https://www.icloud.com/ and see if there is anything.

I imagine your iCloud Contacts has an Apple contact card in it.

It's possible there is a default Calendar, also.

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Answer 12

DuffPaddy Author

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Aug 30, 2016 5:04 AM in response to Barney-15E

Because I don't know what it is so all I can do is make assumptions at this stage. I've tried logging in to icloud.com and I have the same problem. It tells me that I have 10.5 mb of documents stored there but I have absolutely no way of opening these documents to see what they are.

Anyway I only posted here because originally the forum wouldn't allow me to post in the iCloud sub forum. But now I have managed to do that so I have started a new thread in the correct section.

Any input on this issue would be greatly appreciated and thanks to everyone who has chipped in so far.

How do I view my documents

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