Manage Your Account
Your iCloud account has a handful of settings you may want to adjust, including your photo, default language, and time zone. And, if you’ve inadvertently deleted something from Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, or iCloud Drive within the last 30 days, you can restore it using the Settings app on the iCloud website; see Restore Deleted Data. You can also use account-level controls to Upgrade Your Storage.
Change iCloud Website Settings
A few settings related to your use of the iCloud website as a whole—your photo, language, and time zone—are all set in the same place. To adjust them, log in to the iCloud website and either click the Settings icon on the home screen or click your name at the top and choose iCloud Settings from the menu. You can then change settings in any of several categories. Any changes you make take effect immediately.
Change Personal Information
The top portion of the window, which is unlabeled, lets you adjust certain pieces of personal information:
Picture: Your iCloud account can have a photo or other picture associated with it, which other iCloud members will see in certain contexts (such as in email messages). You can do the following:
Add a picture. If you don’t already have a picture assigned to your account, click Add Photo and then either drag in a picture or click Choose Photo, select a photo on your disk, and click Choose. Drag the slider to adjust the zoom level; drag the photo around to reposition it, if desired; and then click Done.
Change your picture. Hover over it with your pointer, click Edit at the bottom of the picture region, and then follow the procedure in the previous bullet point.
Delete your picture. Hover over it and click the Delete
icon.
Manage your Apple ID: To make changes to your Apple ID settings (such as choosing a new password or changing the security settings), click the Manage link under Apple ID.
Language: To change the language of the iCloud website user interface, choose a language from the Language pop-up menu.
Time Zone/Region: To change your time zone (as shown in the Calendar web app) or region, click the current zone name under Time Zone to display a map. Click an area on the map to set your time zone. Then, if the city name shown at the bottom isn’t correct, click the city name and choose another city from the pop-up menu.
To change your Region setting (which affects iWork apps, iCloud Drive, Photos, and Notes), choose a country or other location from the Formats pop-up menu. Optionally choose a language from the second pop-up menu (this language determines the formats used for time, date, and money in some iCloud apps); or, select “Make formats match language” to use the formats associated with the language you selected on the main Settings page.
Click Done to dismiss the Time Zone & Formats dialog.
View Storage Details
A multicolored graph under the Storage heading shows how your iCloud storage is being used. Hover over a colored slice to see a popover with details. Apple provides more information when you view your storage details from a desktop computer or iOS device, and I talk about that in Manage Your Storage, later in this chapter.
View or Remove Devices
Look under My Devices to see all your Macs (running Yosemite or later), iOS devices (running iOS 8 or later), Apple Watches, and Apple TVs. Click a device to see the last several characters of its serial number (and, for iPhones, cellular iPads, and cellular Apple Watches, its IMEI). Then, if you no longer have or use a device, you can remove it from your iCloud account by clicking the X 
icon next to its name and then clicking Remove to confirm your choice.
View Family Sharing Members
If you have Family Sharing enabled, look in the Family Sharing section to see your family members. You can’t change them here, however—that has to happen in System Preferences > iCloud on a Mac or in Settings > Your Name > iCloud on an iOS device.
Restore Deleted Data
If you delete data from Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, or if you delete a browser bookmark or a file from iCloud Drive, iCloud maintains a copy of that data for 30 days. To recover your data, start with one of the links under Advanced—Restore Files, Restore Contacts, Restore Calendars and Reminders, or Restore Bookmarks. Then:
For files: Select the checkbox next to each file you want to restore (or Select All to select everything). Then click Restore.
For other data: Unfortunately, you can’t restore an individual contact, event, reminder, or bookmark—or even an individual calendar or reminder list. You can only restore your Contacts data as a whole, your combined Calendar and Reminders data as a whole, or your bookmark data as a whole, to one of its previously archived states. To do so, locate the item you want to restore and click the Restore link to its right.
The selected item(s) will be restored to all your devices where that data type is enabled. For contacts, calendars, reminders, and bookmarks, iCloud archives your current data (as it exists before restoration) so you can return to your current state later if need be.
Sign Out of All Browsers
If you think you may still be signed in to iCloud on another browser and you want to be sure all browser sessions (including the current one) are closed, click Sign Out of All Browsers under the Advanced heading.
Manage Apps That Can Look You Up
As you can do in System Preferences > iCloud after clicking Options next to iCloud Drive, you can use the Settings web app to choose which apps let other people find you by your email address for the purpose of sharing documents (although I have not yet encountered any apps that support this feature). To do so, click Manage Apps That Can Look You Up under the Advanced heading.
Change Payment Settings
If you subscribe to either of iCloud’s optional paid add-ons (iTunes Match and additional storage), you may need to change your billing address and credit card information at some point.
Change payment settings on a Mac or PC:
Go to System Preferences > iCloud > Account Details > Payment.
Click the Details button next to your credit card.
Edit the information as needed, then click Save.
Click Done, then close System Preferences.
Change payment settings on an iOS device:
Tap Settings > Your Name > Payment & Shipping.
Tap the credit card name.
Make any desired alterations. (Make sure you include your credit card’s security code.) Then tap Save.
Manage Your Storage
iCloud includes 5 GB of storage on Apple’s servers for your email, app data, photos and videos, settings, and backups. That may be plenty for you, but as I explained in About iCloud Storage, that space can quickly fill up, especially if you have more than one iOS device. Fortunately, iCloud lets you check your current usage, delete certain data from the cloud, and turn off backups of individual data types.
Check and Modify Storage Usage
You can see how much storage you’re currently using—and delete specific items from the cloud if necessary—on a Mac, PC, or iOS device.
Check and modify storage usage on a Mac or PC:
(Mac) Go to System Preferences > iCloud. (PC) Open the iCloud app.
To see details of storage, click Manage (at the bottom of the pane, next to the iCloud Storage indicator).
In the dialog that appears (Figure 30), each category listed on the left shows how much data it’s storing online; to see how that data breaks down, select the category. The Backups category shows backups for each of your iOS devices, while an app that uses iCloud Drive, such as Keynote, displays the total amount of cloud storage that it uses.
Figure 30: This dialog shows all the types of data you’re storing and lets you delete specific items. To delete any item (such as the backups of a particular iOS device), select it and click the Delete button; or, to delete all the data stored in the cloud for a particular app, select it and click Delete Documents & Data. Read and understand the warning that the data will be immediately deleted from all your devices (including this one), and click Delete to confirm.
When you delete items here, iCloud deletes them from the cloud—which means they become unavailable on all your devices.
Check and modify storage usage on an iOS device:
Tap Settings > Your Name > iCloud.
To stop any app on this device from using iCloud for storage, turn off the switch next to that app.
To delete data already stored in iCloud for an app, tap Manage Storage followed by the app’s name. Then either tap the Delete button (the wording may vary—for example, “Delete Documents & Data,” “Turn Off and Delete,” or “Disable & Delete”) to delete all the data from that app, or for apps where the Manage Storage screen is listing individual items, swipe left on an item and tap Delete to remove just that one item.
Upgrade Your Storage
If your default 5 GB of storage turns out to be too little, you can upgrade it for a modest monthly fee. I recommend upgrading your storage before you fill your existing plan so you don’t get stuck with data that has nowhere to go.
Apple offers three levels of paid storage, which bring your total storage to the following levels:
50 GB: $0.99 per month
200 GB: $2.99 per month
2 TB: $9.99 per month
If you select the 200 GB level or above, you can share that storage with other family members; see Share Storage Space.
Buy more storage on a Mac or PC:
(Mac) Go to System Preferences > iCloud. (PC) Open the iCloud app.
At the bottom of the window, next to the iCloud Storage indicator, click the Manage button (Mac) or Storage (PC).
Click Change Storage Plan (if you’re already paying for extra storage and want more) or Buy More Storage (if you’re not yet paying for extra).
Click the plan you want to purchase, and click Next.
Enter your password when prompted, and click Buy.
Apple upgrades your account to the selected level of storage. Your subscription will automatically be renewed each month unless you cancel your subscription to the additional storage before the renewal date. (To cancel, go to System Preferences > iCloud on a Mac or the iCloud app in Windows. Click Manage, followed by Change Storage Plan, followed by Downgrade Options. Select a new plan, such as the free 5 GB plan, and click Done.)
Buy more storage on an iOS device:
Tap Settings > Your Name > iCloud > Manage Storage.
Tap Change Storage Plan (if you’re already paying for extra storage and want more) or Buy More Storage (if you’re not yet paying for extra).
Tap the plan you want under Choose Upgrade, and tap Buy.
Confirm your purchase when prompted.
Apple upgrades your account to the selected level of storage. Your subscription to additional storage will be renewed automatically each month unless you cancel it before the renewal date.