3 Ways to Sync iCloud to Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive

iCloud helps you sync and backup files across all your Apple products. If you also use other mobile devices besides those from Apple, you may want to sync your iCloud drive to Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, or another.

If you want to switch from iOS to Android, you probably like to transfer your data from iCloud to Google Drive or another cloud drive. In this article, I will show you 3 different ways to do that. It is possible on Windows, Mac, and iOS devices.

How to Sync iCloud Drive to Google Drive

The first method is pretty obvious, which I believe most people already know. iCloud and Googe Drive both have a desktop app. You can install both apps on your computer and use a File Sync software to sync files from iCloud folder to Google Drive local folder.

You can refer to the video or text below to see how it works.

Step 1. If you are using a Mac, you already have iCloud on your Mac, so you will just need to install Google Drive for Mac. For Windows users, you need to install both Google Drive for Windows and iCloud for Windows. When all that ready, you follow the steps below to continue.

Step 2. If you just want to transfer files between 2 cloud drives, you can simply drag files from iCloud folder to the Google Dirve folder locally and the program will sync to the cloud drive automatically.

Step 3. If you want to sync 2 folders between iCloud and Google Drive, you can use a file sync tool to do that. For me, I like using Hazel for Mac because I can choose to sync what types of files on certain conditions that I can specify. For Windows, you can use File Juggler, which works the same as Hazel. There are also a few other ways to sync files in Windows 10.

In this way, you can sync files between different cloud drives automatically, but it will take your local storage and you need to keep your computer running in order to keep the sync task working in real-time.

There are other ways, better ways to do it, so keep reading.

Sync iCloud to Another Cloud Drive with Anytrans for Cloud

You probably already know there are many cloud manager tools that allow you to manage files across different cloud drives, but none of them supports iCloud until AnyTrans for Cloud. Available for Mac and Windows PCs, AnyTrans for Cloud is the world’s first cloud manager that allows you to access iCloud Drive, and manage files across multiple cloud drive services. It is also available on the web, but if you need to download the AnyTrans for Cloud program to access iCloud. For other drive clouds, the web app is all good.

Once you get the program installed, you can connect your iCloud and other cloud drives like Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, etc. Then you can copy and paste to transfer files across different cloud drive. You can also set up a sync task to sync two folders automatically.

You can tell AnyTrans to sync files automatically to a target cloud service.

You can register a free account and start to sync your files from iCloud to Dropbox or any others. It also comes with a premium plan. With Premium, you can also set schedules to automatically transfer or sync photos, videos, files, folders, etc, from one cloud service to another, at the scheduled time of your choosing.

Sync iCloud to Dropbox on iPhone

There is another way to sync iCloud to Dropbox or back on iOS 14. However, it is not as good as the previous 2 methods. iOS 14 comes with the Shortcuts app that allows you to automate many tasks on your iPhone or iPad.

From the Shortcuts app, you can use actions to get files from iCloud and save it to Dropbox. Since iOS 13.1, you have the Automation feature, so you can set up an automation task to automatically run this action apoun certain event. You should also toggle on the option “Overwrite If File Exists” to avoid duplicates. 

When you complete setting the trigger, be sure to toggle off the option”Ask before running”. Then it will automatically transfer all files in your specified iCloud folder to DropbYouox at the time you pick.

If you iPhone is running iOS 13, the time trigger does not run automatically, but give you a notification to remind you and you have to tab to run it. A workaround would be set up a automation task that will start when Do Not Disturb mode is on and the set up a Do Not Disturb schedule in Settings. In this way, you can truly run a shortcut at a scheduled time without user intervention.

Conclusion

That’s all the three ways to sync iCloud drive to Dropbox or other cloud drive. I really hope one day Apple will make the Shortcuts automation really works automatically and add support for more cloud drives in the Shortcuts app.

Now, it is your turn. How do you think of these methods? Which one are you going to try first?