# Apple iCloud 144 Hacker News commenters recommended Apple iCloud and 231 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 13 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 3 years (7 owners). **Verdict:** Apple users like its no-setup sync, automatic photo backup and custom-domain email, but critics cite account lockouts, pushy default sign-ups and difficulty getting files back out. ## Why people recommend it - Effortless sync across Apple devices (6 comments): "Everything is fully synced to all of my other devices through iCloud, a service which I've spent zero minutes setting up and zero minutes maintaining." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45853382)) "my new phone looks and acts like my old phone with all of the bookmarks, icons, app data, settings etc being restored" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46007426)) "iCloud is generally a pretty predictable service that delivers on a core set of user requirements very well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47843322)) - Custom domain email included (6 comments): "I was totally unaware of this. I haven't quite been ready to pull the trigger on something like FastMail or ProtonMail, but I have a few domains kicking around and figure it's worth a shot to try it out." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49567260)) "I migrated family email hosting from Google Workspace to Apple iCloud+ Custom Email Domains a few years ago and it's been smooth sailing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50142791)) "email hosting on your own domain is included in the plan. If you're already paying for it you might as well use it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49567155)) - Automatic photo and phone backup (6 comments): "Let's hope that your phone won't be part of the 70 million smartphones that get lost each year and your photos aren't backed up." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48071312)) "It's substantially easier for a user to have their photos immediately and automatically backed up to icloud or Google Photos" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46257564)) "compared to automatically synchronizing to iCloud or Google Photos, the experience is significantly worse" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48577358)) - Strong security with end-to-end encryption (5 comments): "The same Apple that later fought against the government forcing document scanning in iCloud and was able to keep them out off device." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47162780)) "iCloud is much more secure than most people realize because most people don't take the 30 minutes to learn how it is architected." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46744075)) "shipped a feature that enables privacy-conscious users to be the only ones to hold the keys to their iCloud account" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50078750)) ## What people warn about - Account lockouts with little recourse (4 comments): "This was a huge struggle. Finally, after weeks, we were able to reset the password, but only because we had access to the email he used." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46255121)) "The built-in integrations (iCloud, Google Drive) are smooth right up until you’re locked out or forced into changes you can't control." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46256411)) "Apple clearly has a problem. In recent months there have been a number of reports online of people getting locked out of their Apple ID/iCloud" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46253181)) - Enabled by default, nags to subscribe (5 comments): "While I find iCloud useful and use it regularly, I don't think nagging people until they break is a good thing to do." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49622624)) "permanent notification bubble on the System Preferences app on the Mac where I'm not logged into an Apple ID" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46693853)) "The default new factory out of box workflow for "enrollment" in google services, iCloud or Microsoft-everything on a new ios, macos, windows or android personal computing device is clearly designed to sign people up for subscriptions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48987332)) - Hard to export or manage files (5 comments): "video shot with the Camera.app gets lumped into the "Photos" partition of iCloud, so it becomes hard to separate the large video files" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49801455)) "It is a sub-standard experience and it looks like it is only going to get worse as Apple pushes iCloud into more areas of macOS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166127)) "None use the file system in anything like the way their unix underpinning would have files be understood or organised for users." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49944904)) - Not end-to-end encrypted by default (3 comments): "By default (without ADP), your (i)Messages, Drive files, contacts, calendars, backups of data from third-party apps are not end-to-end encrypted" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48465372)) "Still, it's more important to have confidence that the privacy services are not smoke and mirrors with carefully carved-out loopholes." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46849115)) "they would rather build and normalize CLIENT SIDE CONTENT SCANNING so they can continue to market iCloud as "secure and private"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48994498)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Dropbox](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dropbox.md): 140 recommend - [OneDrive](https://hackerapproved.com/p/onedrive.md): 86 recommend - [Google Drive](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-drive.md): 66 recommend - [rsync.net](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rsync-net.md): 34 recommend - [Hetzner Storage Box](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hetzner-storage-box.md): 27 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://www.icloud.com/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Apple iCloud", https://hackerapproved.com/p/icloud/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).