You excitedly tore off the wrapping paper, and maybe a let out a squeal of delight when you realised you’d received the gift of an iPhone or iPod Touch, or maybe you simply treated yourself?  Having played Angry Birds, JetPack Joyride or even Ballistyx, or maybe you’re a long time user but something at the back of your mind is saying “Has my data been backed up and stored in the iCloud?”.

It is surprising how often these settings are overlooked, and only discovered when you lose your gadget or it’s broken and realise that you may have lost your contacts, documents and those photograph

s of your kids…  Well all is not lost, this blog looks at the settings you should check to ensure that your data is at least backed up and synced with the cloud!

The purpose of this article is to act as a reference point to check your settings to make sure you are making the most out of the iCloud, so first things first.

Step 1: Settings

From the home screen, select Settings from your home screen, or you can give Siri the command “Open Settings”

Step 2: Select iCloud or give Siri the command “Open Settings iCloud”

Step 3: Check the minimum options below are switched on :-

Step 4: Select Photo’s

 Step 5: Check your photo settings look like this :-

You may wish to disable Photo Sharing, however, please check that “My Photo Stream” is switched on!

If you are a Mac User, your photo’s are synced with iPhoto, check this with iPhoto -> Preferences and 

You may also want to check out this article http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2605

If you are a Windows user, you will need to download the iCloud Control Panel http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1455

Step 6: Click iCloud at the top left corner to go back to the main iCloud Menu.

Step 7: Select Documents and Data :-

 Step 7: Select Documents and Data :-

Check that Documents & Data is switched on, you can individually set what data you want storing in the iCloud, this is particularly useful if you don’t want to go over your 5Gb that Apple Provide free of charge.

You may wish to switch use Cellular Data off especially if you are on Pay-as-you-Go (PAYG) Mobile Data Contracts or regularly use up your data limited with your service provider.  If you do switch this off, syncing will only take place once you are connected to WiFi.

Step 8: Initial Backup, Click on iCloud and go back to settings and now select Storage and Backup

Step 9: Initial Backup, Click on iCloud and go back to settings and now select Storage and Backup, and check that iCloud Backup is switched on, and then click on Back Up Now

Your first backup may take some time, depending on the amount of data that you have on your device.  With all these set, your device should perform a backup every time you charge your device and it is connected to WiFi.  Document data will synchronise across devices automatically when you open those documents and a valid connection is available.

Step 10: Finally to check that your data has successfully installed in the cloud, go to www.icloud.com use your apple id (iTunes account ID) to log in, and you should see something like this:-

Click on Contacts, or calendar and check that your data has been uploaded to the cloud!

Check your other Apple devices to ensure that iCloud backup is switched on to take advantage of seamless synchronisation across all your devices, including windows!

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