---
title: Icloud
platform: universal
category: technologies
url: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/icloud
quality_score: 0.37
content_length: 4292
last_updated: 2025-07-20T03:45:17.872Z
keywords: ["icloud","universal","technologies","design","feedback"]
has_code_examples: false
has_images: false
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---
June 9, 2025 Added guidance for synchronizing game data through i Cloud. i Cloudi Cloud is a service that lets people seamlessly access the content they care about — photos, videos, documents, and more — from any device, without performing explicit synchronization. A fundamental aspect of i Cloud is transparency. People don’t need to know where content resides. They can just assume they’re always accessing the latest version. Best practices Make it easy to use your app with i Cloud. People turn on i Cloud in Settings and expect apps to work with it automatically. If you think people might want to choose whether to use i Cloud with your app, show a simple option the first time your app opens that provides a choice between using i Cloud for all data or not at all. Avoid asking which documents to keep in i Cloud. Most people expect all of their content to be available in i Cloud and don’t want to manage the storage of individual documents. Consider how your app handles and exposes content, and try to perform more file-management tasks automatically. Keep content up to date when possible. In an app that supports i Cloud, it’s best when people always have access to the most recent content. However, you need to balance this experience with respect to device storage and bandwidth constraints. If your app works with very large documents, it may be better to let people control when updated content is downloaded. If your app fits in this category, design a way to indicate that a more recent version of a document is available in i Cloud. When a document is updating, provide subtle feedback if the download takes more than a few seconds. Respect i Cloud storage space. i Cloud is a finite resource for which people pay. Use i Cloud to store information people create and understand, and avoid using it for app resources or content you can regenerate. Even if your app doesn’t implement i Cloud support, remember that i Cloud backups include the contents of every app’s Documents folder. To avoid using up too much space, be picky about the content you place in the Documents folder. Make sure your app behaves appropriately when i Cloud is unavailable. If someone manually turns off i Cloud or turns on Airplane Mode, you don’t need to display an alert notifying them i Cloud is unavailable. However, it may still be helpful to unobtrusively let people know that changes they make won’t be available on other devices until they restore i Cloud access. Keep app state information in i Cloud. In addition to storing documents and other files, you can use i Cloud to store settings and information about the state of your app. For example, a magazine app might store the last page viewed so when the app is opened on another device, someone can continue reading from where they left off. If you use i Cloud to store settings, make sure it’s for ones people want applied to all of their devices. For example, some settings might be more useful at work than at home. Warn about the consequences of deleting a document. When someone deletes a document in an app that supports i Cloud, the document is removed from i Cloud and all other devices too. Show a warning and ask for confirmation before performing the deletion. Make conflict resolution prompt and easy. To the extent possible, try to detect and resolve version conflicts automatically. If this can’t be done, display an unobtrusive notification that makes it easy to differentiate and choose between the conflicting versions. Ideally, conflict resolution occurs as early as possible, so time isn’t wasted in the wrong version. Include i Cloud content in search results. People with i Cloud accounts assume their content is universally available, and they expect search results to reflect this perspective. For games, consider saving player progress in i Cloud. Although you can implement this functionality yourself, the Game Save framework offers an efficient solution. It synchronizes save data across devices and offers built-in alerts you can use to help players handle syncing issues during offline play or when conflicts arise. Alternatively, you can implement custom UI that uses Game Save data to resolve these situations. For developer guidance, see Game Save. Resources Developer documentation Cloud Kit Game Save
