iCloud is a great way to keep your e-mail, contacts, calendar, tasks, and photos synced across your Apple devices. But what if you decide to switch from an iPhone to an Android phone? Or if you get a Mac for work? Apple doesn’t always play nice with other ecosystems, but you can access iCloud from your Android with the right apps.
Every Android device comes with the Gmail app as well as an app called Email, and this is the app that we’ll be using to access your iCloud e-mail. You can also use an alternative e-mail app 5 Excellent Email Apps for Android, Compared 5 Excellent Email Apps for Android, Compared You probably use your smartphone for email, but switching to one of these apps could make that experience a lot better for you. Read More , if you so choose. If you’ve set up an IMAP or POP3 e-mail address before, this process will be familiar to you. If not, don’t worry—it’s quite easy.
- Open the Email app and tap the menu button in the top-right corner. (If you’ve never used the Email app before, just open it and go to step #3.)
- Tap Add Account.
- Enter your iCloud e-mail address and password, then tap Next.
- Select IMAP and tap Next.
- When you see the Incoming Server Settings page, remove the “@icloud.com” from your username.
- Change the IMAP server to “imap.mail.me.com.”
- Set the security field to SSL/TLS (Accept all certificates).
- Make sure the port is set to 993, then tap Next.
- On the Outgoing Server Settings page, change the SMTP server to “smtp.mail.me.com.”
- Change the security setting to STARTTLS and make sure the port is set to 587 and “Require sign-in” is checked.
- Tap Next to complete the process.
Once you’ve gone through this list of steps and saved your changes, you’ll be able to access your iCloud mail via the Email app on your Android phone. Pretty simple!
If you have any difficulties with this, you can try changing the security type in the incoming or outgoing server settings. The combination of security settings that I mention above is the one that worked for me, but you might find that you need to use a different one.
Contacts
Syncing your contacts between iCloud and Android isn’t quite as simple as adding your iCloud e-mail address. However, some developers have created apps that will help you out and make the process a lot easier. The easiest way to go is to install SmoothSync for Cloud Contacts ($3.99), which was created specifically for syncing your iCloud contacts with your Android phone.
To use the app, just download it and enter your iCloud username and password. Your iCloud contacts will now be synced with your Android ones! Note, however, that you should probably install and run the JB Workaround Cloud Contacts app (free) first.
If you’d rather use a free option, you can download CardDAV-Sync beta (free) and use the instructions below.
Note: the workaround apps for SmoothSync and CardDAV-Sync Beta are different apps. You don’t need the CardDAV-Sync workaround app for the free version, but there’s a paid version of CardDAV-Sync Beta that requires the workaround.
- Install and open CardDAV-Sync Free Beta.
- In the server name or URL field, enter “contacts.icloud.com.”
- Enter your Apple ID and password in the username and password fields then tap Next.
- Enter a name for the account, and decide whether you’d like one-way or two-way sync.
- Tap Finish to complete the process.
Your contacts will now be synced between your iCloud account and your Android device — and if you’ve already synced your iCloud contacts with your iPhone or iPad How To Sync Your Contacts Between Your Computer & Your iPad or iPhone How To Sync Your Contacts Between Your Computer & Your iPad or iPhone Many of you will already know all about Apple’s iCloud, its wonderful sync features and the fact that it allows you to find your iDevice and access mail, your calendar and even documents from any... Read More , you’ll be able to access them wherever you are.
Calendar
Just as with the contacts, there are two different apps that I’ll recommend. The first is SmoothSync for Cloud Calendar ($2.98) — it’s created by the same developer as SmoothSync for Cloud Contacts. Using it is just as simple. Download and install it, enter your username and password, and let it go to work. Easy!
This developer has also published CalDAV-Sync ($2.89), an app that allows you to sync any CalDAV or Webcal calendar to your Android device. While it’s not free, it’s well worth the price tag if you want to sync up iCloud and your Android. The setup is exactly the same as above, but uses the JB Workaround CalDAV-Sync (free) workaround app and a different server name.
- Install the workaround app and run it.
- Install and open CalDAV-Sync.
- In the server name / URL field, enter “calendar.icloud.com.”
- Enter your Apple ID and password in the username and password fields, then tap Next.
- Select the calendars to sync, then tap Finish.
Once you’ve done this, you’ll see your iCloud calendars show up in whichever calendar app you normally use.
If you’d rather use a free app, you can use Caldav Sync Free Beta, which is confusingly not created by the same developer as the apps listed above. Instead of providing an app in which you can enter your information, it simply adds a CalDav Sync Adapter option in the Add Accounts pane of the settings.
Notes
Fortunately, syncing your notes from Apple’s very useful Notes app 10 Hidden Apple Notes Features You Should Know About Think you know Apple Notes? These tricks will help you supercharge your note-taking with Notes on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Read More with your Android account is simple, though it does come with some limitations.
To sync your notes, open up System Preferences from your Apple computer and click on Internet Accounts. Select the Google account that’s associated with your Android.
Here, you’ll see a number of things that you can sync with your phone. By selecting Notes, everything that you add to your Notes app will be sent to your phone. Where will it show up? In your Gmail app, in a new label called Notes. This is a bit counterintuitive.
This has the disadvantage that when you sync your notes with your phone, they won’t sync with iCloud. In your desktop Notes app, you’ll see that you have notes under the Google heading and notes under the iCloud heading—they don’t get pushed to both. This is annoying, but if you have certain notes that you think might be good to have on your phone, you can push them there, while others can get backed up to iCloud.
The main limitation of this method is that you can’t edit your notes from your phone. The easy solution to this is to use iNotes [no longer available]. Note that this app looks like it was made by Apple, but it wasn’t, and it will let you edit your notes from your phone.
Of course, you can always switch to Evernote or another note-taking app for Android What Is the Best Free Note-Taking App for Android? What Is the Best Free Note-Taking App for Android? If you want to take notes on your Android smartphone or tablet, you need one of these apps. Read More and have your notes available wherever you are, on any device, to read and edit.
Reminders
If you use Apple’s Reminders app to keep track of your tasks, you can get access to them on your Android through a few different apps on your phone. If you’re using CalDAV-Sync or SmoothSync, you can do this quite easily by downloading Tasks (free) from the same developer. Because CalDAV provides support for task sync, Tasks simply piggybacks on the CalDAV connection set up by the other app to get your reminders.
Tasks is very simple and doesn’t provide a lot of extra functionality, giving it a similar feel to the Reminders app on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone. It’s also free, which makes it a very appealing option.
If you’re not planning on using CalDAV-Sync or SmoothSync, or you just want a different app, you can download Reminder for iCloud/iOS/iPhone ($2.99) [No longer available]. It provides the same functionality and syncs with iCloud. Unfortunately, Reminder for iCloud/iOS/iPhone isn’t free, and at $3 it’s tough to justify it over a free alternative.
Connecting to iCloud From Android
Syncing iCloud and your Android can take some time to get set up, but it’s well worth the effort if you have e-mail, contacts, calendars, and other data that you want to sync between your various devices.
Have you found any other good ways of getting access to iCloud How to Access and Manage iCloud Drive Files From Any Device How to Access and Manage iCloud Drive Files From Any Device iCloud Drive is a handy tool, but accessing your files can be a little confusing since Apple's cloud storage experience really differs depending on your platform or device. Read More from your Android? Share them below!
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Looking at the comments there still seems to be confusion over accessing iCloud from an Android device. Perhaps the main article here could be amended? As I said before all that is required to access and use all of your stuff on iCloud is the use of Google Chrome's desktop site.
Steve Peterson
Thanks...helped me so much. Now my android is synced with my apple account.
Great great great thank you!!!
With email i do the exact steps as it says and i can't get passed incoming email server because it says authrocation error
sorry, none of it worked on Android 6.0
I spent 2 days, on and off, trying to connect my Fire 7 tablet (not rooted btw but with Google Play on it- easy stuff just search how) to iCloud. I read a lot of stuff about syncing email addresses through this and that email app but of course nothing worked. iCloud and Apple are stubborn bs and don't want Android phones/tablets to access "THEIR CLOUD". I then had a Eureka moment - why not just use a browser like Chrome to connect to their cloud. Nope that doesn't work either, on mobile browser that is, HOWEVER, if you connect Chrome as a desktop (three little dots top right - Desktop site) then it all works splendidly. My iCloud is now available with all my stuff and of course emails. Yes!
Wait what exactly did u add to desktop the icloud website?
I have tried more than two doz times following specific directions, but I can't get past your username or password is incorrect. so frustrating since it is correct! What else do I need to do
Same here
See my reply
Which reply and where is it?
This is happening to me right now. I am near to a nervus breakdown!!!
See my reply
Like some have mentioned already, but to reiterate - you have to enable two factor authentication and make a App Specific Password inside Security area of Apple ID administration. Generate password and use that one to enable Apple e-mail. Do not use your Apple ID password.
Using the App Specific Password and 2 Factor authentication seems to wrk for me for a while; then stops working again (MacBook Air and Galaxy A5) . I'm trying out 2 factor verification instead of 2FA (not quite the same thing; fairly complicated) which is working so far. I think Apple aren't doing themselves any favours in the long term by trying to make their products incompatible, or at least very difficult to use with rivals' (e.g. headphone and charging sockets as well as email problems).
I tried the procedure using the email app but after entering email address and password I keep getting reply from iCloud that my iCloud email address or password are incorrect. I suspect that apple is blocking access through android. I am using an Amazon fire.
See my reply
I use an android phone, have a /mac accunt and access my various email accounts using the Gmail app..... Gmail recently stopped being able to access my .mac account. I had to turn on 2step verification and get an app specific password for my gmail app to access my .mac emails. Took awhile to figure out as it just suddenly happened without warning and the only info i got was that gmail thought my password was incorrect--all the while i could still access my .mac emails on my Mac laptop ot on an iPad. Hope this helps!
And you have to *leave* 2FA on in your Apple account in order for it to continue working. Fail
Thank you! That's really been helpful.
Having the same issue but am unable to figure out how to turn on 2step verification. Is it 2step or 2 factor that you had to activate? Apple site is stating that the two are different things.
I believe it was two factor verificarion. ...which led me to generate an App Specific password from Apple to use with gmail.
2 factor enabled.
Then generate an App Specific password from Apple.
For some reason my Xperia doesn't get past the incoming server stage. The settings won't take and I can't progress any further. Any ideas?
Because this article's over three years old, it's quite possible that this isn't the best way to go about it anymore. I don't have any Android devices anymore, so I can't check it out; hopefully someone else chimes in with a more useful answer!
Well thanks a lot it worked out real well for me, saved me tons of time. Thought there is one thing that I still don't know how to do. How do I transfer my whatsapp data? It's backed up on Icloud but my previous phone's whatsapp data is now gone so the only way I can find my whatsapp data is through Icloud which I'm unable to find on the Icloud website while the phone's Icloud says that it is backed up. Any way you are able to help me?
Hm . . . that's a tough one. I haven't had to do that myself, so I can't provide any specific guidance. Is it possible to backup your WhatsApp data elsewhere so you can download it from your Android phone?
@Dann: I guess the system has changed now. The above procedure did not work out for me. Here is the new way. By logging into https:appleid.apple.com/account/manage we will get an option to "Generate App Specific Passwords". Generate the password and input with the same password in your email app, you will have your icloud mail configured in your android phone. It worked for me.
Yeah, this was written quite a while ago; thanks for pointing that out! I'll get in touch with the Android editor and see if this article needs updating.
That's only if you have Two Factor Authentication enabled John.
I'm still fighting with this on my S7. Nothing works for me.
I'm using map.mail.me.com as the Notes server path, as I can't find anything else.
Also, I can't find that $2.99 iNotes app - anyone got a URL? I can only see free ones and many with that name.
It's possible that that app is gone; the article was written almost three years ago. And Apple's policies/technologies have likely changed, so it doesn't surprise me that you're having trouble. They certainly don't like to make it easy to use other companies' devices with their services!
OK, I've done it with the ImapNotes2 app - my username is my Apple email address without the @mac.com part, which IS WRONG if I'm setting up the email and calendars.
Anyway, just happy it's working.
Glad you got it working! I haven't had to do anything like this in a long time, and the article is almost three years old now, so I'm not too surprised that things have changed.
I don't have any idea what my iCloud email address is. I just want to send a video from my iPad to an android phone.
You could try emailing it if you can't access iCloud, or sharing with Dropbox or Google Drive.
Use puffin browser search on play store icloud works on it bcz it's a flash player 100%
Keep saying "checking incoming server settings" for about 2 min and then says "unable to connect to server" don't know what to do could you give me a hand? Thanks.
Are you still having this problem? Unfortunately, I don't have an Android phone anymore that I can check out the problem on, so I don't know if I can provide any specific help. Hopefully someone else will chime in with a good solution!
Use puffin browser problem solved 100%
Vamsi, please be a little more specific. What is a puffin browser?
Thanks!
Thank you the email settings worked fantastically!!!
I'm really glad you found the article useful!
Thanks for reading.
Appreciate the article. Used the SmoothSync for Cloud Calendar. It has worked like a charm and eliminated additional frustrating moments.
Again just wanted to offer THANKS.
Thanks for sharing your appreciation! We're always really happy to hear that readers are using our articles to solve their problems. SmoothSync definitely seems like the way to go. Thanks for reading!
This is all very well, but what about if you want to borrow someone else's Galaxy to access what is supposed to be the webmail of Mac Mail (iCloud)? You go into a web browser on the Galaxy and it will not let you sign into Apple's iCloud. So, yes, you can probably set up an e'mail client on a Galaxy, but for casual use or borrowing someone else's machine forget it. iCloud is not a real webmail system it seems.
I hadn't thought of that; the article was intended for people who are setting up iCloud on their own device, not on someone else's. Fortunately, I don't think accessing your own email on someone else's tablet probably comes up very often!
As for iCloud not being a "real" webmail system . . . I don't know how many people actually use it as their primary account, so that may also be a moot point.
1.Use chrome browser and go to http://www.icloud.com. 2. Request desktop site on the right upper corner pull down menu when the "browser not supported" message appears. 3.Log in to your iCloud account with your credentials. 4. Enjoy!!
You will need to have 2-step authentication turned off or have a trusted device available for it to work.
I have movies on iTunes and an lg tablet. I want my movies on the tablet. Is there a way
Hm . . . it depends a lot on the specific requirements / restrictions on the tablet. You might have to convert the movie file to something like MP4. I'd try that first.
Thanks Dann, I will search for and try.
Hi Dann, please what about just accessing files stored in iCloud (i.e. password storage) from my Android mobile? Many thanks
I'm not sure about getting access to your Keychain, but there's an app called iCloudDrive for Android that might do what you're looking for. I haven't tried it, as I'm no longer using an Android phone, but it looks like a good bet. You might also be able to do it through your browser—it would take a while, but might work in a pinch.
Yeap, buy and use a Blackberry Device or a Windows 8.1 device... You'll have your contacts and calendar on both, just by adding an account iCloud, Google, Outlook, Ovi, or whatever you use. Easy and seamlessly. Blackberry will install android applications. I found the ones I use to install easily and effortlessly.. However google services you have to go through some workaround... You will not have any google services, but I've found I can live without them just fine.
I find the blackberry the most useful. After using Lumia 1520 and blackberry Passport, I find going back to pure samsung N3. Tedious and frustrating.. I feel I've got better control over the other two, for what I use it... Kind of got sick and tired of the Android Samsung, Knox drama and rooting....
Windows 8.1 has its shortcomings too as everything. But I can carry all my contacts and calendars including iCloud with no hassle... don't care what I update anymore, its all where it needs to be when I need it, regardless of the device I use... and that my friend, is priceless... at least to me!!!
Yes, using a system not owned by Google or Apple definitely has its advantages. However, changing devices isn't a viable strategy for most people. Also, because the workaround isn't all that difficult, I think a lot of people find it worth it to keep using their favorite devices.
Thanks for pointing out that other devices don't always have these issues, though. That's a good point!
This was a bloody useful page. I'm grateful & thanks
Happy to hear that it's been useful for you! Thanks for reading.
sadly, no information on how to set up the calendar using the "Caldav Sync Free Beta" is a bit of a let down.
following - http://computing.physics.harvard.edu/icloud
ending up using - https://p02-caldav.icloud.com
now i'm slightly ok with switching from my iPhone to a Moto from Republic Wireless,
thanks to you.
Glad you found a solution that works for you! Switching between an iPhone and an Android (or vice versa) can be pain, but using the right tools makes a big difference. Thanks for reading!
Great article! For Calendars and Contacts, there's now also DAVdroid. It's an open- source CalDAV/CardDAV app (both in one app) and works well with iCloud, too!
Thanks for recommending DAVdroid. I don't use an Android phone any longer or I'd try it out . . . but hopefully some others find it useful!
Personally I use an application called Sync for iCloud Mail. It is very easy to use. You just enter your username and password and everything is done for you.
The user interface is also very nice, and the application is very easy to use.
Here is the URL for those of you who are interested:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.granita.icloudmail
Thanks for recommend that app! I haven't used it myself, but it sounds pretty useful.
works very well
...what about apps
Good question; I haven't done as much research into apps for getting access to iCloud, but iCloudDrive seems to be a good one: http://www.i-cloudinc.com/iCloudDrive/ForHome/MobileApps.html
My phone would not move from the incoming server to the outgoing one without an IMAP prefix. No idea what to write in there!
I think this here is a very good alternative to sync the iCloud contacts to the Android device which support more stuff then the mentioned one AND it is cheaper. I found it at the Play Store here:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vcard.android and it sync my iCloud contacts well.
So probably its worth to mention it as an alternative
Looks like it would do the job just fine! I've never heard of it before, but it seems pretty legit. And at $1.99, it's not very expensive.
However, CardDAV-Sync is cheaper, as it's currently free. Once it comes out of beta, it'll likely be more than $1.99, but we'll have to wait to find out. Until then, though. CardDAV-Sync is cheapest option out there.
Thanks for posting! Always glad to have more options in the list.
Hi the free CardDAV-Sync version is very limited you can't sync all iCloud contact fields and are missing important ones like notes, relations, and so one. So I don't think that the free one is comparable to ContactSync which sync all that stuff.