The iCloud troubleshooting tip everybody needs

There are lots of things you can do to make sure your iCloud is working properly — logging in and out on your device(s); ensuring you are logged in using the same email address on all your items (a particular problem to those of us who once used iTools and .Mac) and more, but the one that everybody needs to use, should know to use, and probably wants to use is this one:

The situation: You don’t know what’s happening, contacts and/or events you enter using any of your iCloud devices are not syncing to your device. You’ve run the checks noted above, so what’s happening?

It’s a sync delay. To force iCloud to sync is very simple:

In Contacts

• Launch Contacts
• Tap the top right-hand corner of the app, where it says ‘Groups’
• A page will appear listing all the different contact groups yo have created and any other accounts you sync contacts to.
• Tap and gently hold anywhere on the page and swipe down. You should see a new area of grey space appear near the top of the page with a spinning activity icon. After a couple of seconds release the page.
• Activity icon should spin briefly and then stop.

Now check to see if the contacts have synced. They probably have, as this step is called Force Sync.

In Calendar

• Launch Calendar
• Tap ‘Calendars’ at the bottom of the page, you’ll find it in the middle of the three items listed there.
• A page will appear listing all the calendars you sync to your device
• This bit will sound familiar: “Tap and gently hold anywhere on the page and swipe down. You should see a new area of grey space appear near the top of the page with a spinning activity icon. After a couple of seconds release the page.”
• After a really short time, the Activity monitor will stop, click Done and go check if the Calendar has now synced.

These tips usually work. If you have problems try this page.

Good luck.