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iCloud Drive setup

For Apple users. About 5 minutes start to finish.

If you have an iPhone (or iPad) and a Mac signed into the same Apple ID, you already have everything you need. iCloud Drive is built into both. You just need to point Keepance at the right folder.

Step 1: Make sure iCloud Drive is on

On your Mac

  1. Open System Settings, click your Apple ID at the top, then click iCloud.
  2. Make sure iCloud Drive is turned on. If it isn't, flip the toggle and wait a moment for it to sync.

On your iPhone

  1. Open the Files app. If you've never used it, it's the blue folder icon that ships with iOS.
  2. Tap Browse at the bottom. You should see iCloud Drive in the list of locations. If it's missing, go to Settings → [your name] → iCloud → iCloud Drive and turn it on.

Step 2: Point Keepance at iCloud Drive

In Keepance on your Mac

  1. Open Keepance. From the menu, choose File → Open Workspace (or click the workspace name in the sidebar to switch).
  2. In the folder picker, navigate to your iCloud Drive folder. The full path is:
    ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/
  3. Create a new folder called Keepance inside iCloud Drive (or pick an existing folder if you already have one).
  4. Select that folder as your workspace and click Open.

From this moment on, every file Keepance writes lives inside iCloud Drive and syncs automatically.

[Screenshot: Mac Keepance with workspace pointing at iCloud Drive folder]
TODO: real screenshot of Keepance's workspace selector pointing at iCloud Drive.

Step 3: Wait for sync

The first sync can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes depending on how much is in your workspace. You can watch progress in the Finder: open your iCloud Drive folder and look for the cloud icon next to each file. A solid icon means it's uploading; no icon means it's done.

If your workspace is brand new and only has a handful of Markdown files, sync should finish in well under a minute.

Step 4: Open your workspace on iPhone

  1. On your iPhone, open the Files app.
  2. Tap Browse, then iCloud Drive, then your Keepance folder.
  3. You'll see your workspace exactly as it is on your Mac. Tap any .md file to read it.
[Screenshot: iPhone Files app showing the synced Keepance workspace]
TODO: real screenshot of iPhone Files browsing the Keepance folder in iCloud Drive.

iOS Files renders Markdown as plain text. If you want pretty rendering on the phone, install a free Markdown reader from the App Store (Taio, 1Writer, and iA Writer all work well) and point it at the same iCloud Drive folder.

Limitations to know

Treat your phone as read-only for now. If you edit a file on both your Mac and your phone within a few seconds of each other, iCloud Drive can produce a conflict copy named something like VISION 2.md. To avoid this, pick one device at a time as the editor.

What's next

The iCloud Drive workaround is the simplest mobile path on Apple devices. If you also want to sync to non-Apple devices, see the Dropbox guide or the Syncthing guide.

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