How to Turn Off iCloud on iPhone

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While most people use the feature all the time, you may want to turn off iCloud on your iPhone. Doing that is pretty simple, but turning off iCloud can have far-reaching implications for how you use your iPhone.

What iCloud Does When Turned On

The basic functions of the iCloud are pretty well known to most people: it's used to keep data in sync across all devices that are signed into the same iCloud account. That means that if you add a contact, update your calendar, or do any number of other things on your iPhone, that change will be automatically applied to your other iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other Apple devices.

But iCloud does a lot more than that, too. You can also use it to back up data from your devices to the cloud, to use Find My iPhone to track lost or stolen devices, to upload photos to your public Photo Stream, and to share your Safari usernames and passwords across devices, among other things. Signing into iCloud also signs you into other Apple services and feature, like FaceTime, iMessage, Game Center, and Siri Shortcuts, too.

Why You Might Want to Turn Off iCloud

Those all sound like pretty important features to use with your iPhone, right? They are, but you still might want to turn them off. For instance, you might not want to back up your iPhone data to iCloud or share your photos with the world. You might also want to prevent data from syncing from your iPhone to other devices. We don't recommend turning off iCloud — it has too many useful features, most importantly Find My iPhone — but there are good reasons to do it in some cases.

How to Turn Off iCloud on iPhone

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So, now that you know what turning off iCloud involves, just follow these steps to do it. These instructions apply to devices running iOS 10.3 or higher:

1. Tap the Settings app to open it.
2. Tap your name at the top of the Settings screen.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the screen. Tap Sign Out.
4. Enter your Apple ID when prompted and then tap Turn Off. This turns off Find My iPhone, which you have to do before you turn off iCloud.
5. Next, choose what data you want to keep a copy of on this iPhone. Move the slider to on/green for Calendars, Contacts, Keychain, Safari, and/or Stocks.
6. After this, tap Sign Out in the top right corner.
7. Tap Sign Out one more time and you'll finally be signed out of iCloud.

Remember, signing out of iCloud also signs you out of Find My iPhone, FaceTime, and iMessage. You can turn on FaceTime and iMessage individually, in those apps, and use a phone number with them instead of your iCloud account. Find My iPhone requires iCloud be turned on.

How to Turn Off iCloud on iPhone on iOS 10.2 or Earlier

The steps for turning off iCloud in iOS 10.2 or earlier are a bit different:

1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap iCloud.
3. Tap Sign Out.
4. In the pop-up, tap Delete from My iPhone.
5. Choose the data you want to keep a copy of on your iPhone.
6. Enter your Apple ID when prompted.
7. Tap Turn Off to disable iCloud.

How to Turn off Individual iCloud Features on iPhone

What if you don't want to turn off all of iCloud, but just a few features? You can do that, too, by following these steps:

1. Tap Settings.
2. On iOS 10.3 or higher, tap your name. On iOS 10.2 or lower, skip this step.
3. Tap iCloud.
4. On the screen that lists all of the iCloud features, disable the ones you don't want to use by moving their sliders to off/white.
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6. For some features, such as Photos, you'll need to tap the menus to reveal another screen's worth of options. Move sliders there to off/white to disable them as well.