How to Transfer Files from Google Drive to iCloud (4 Ways in 2026)

Is there a button somewhere that sends your Google Drive files straight to iCloud? I went looking, and the honest answer is no. Google and Apple don’t connect their clouds, so every method copies the files through a computer, a phone, or a downloaded archive.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to transfer files from Google Drive to iCloud four ways: a quick download and upload, a full Google Takeout export, a copy between the desktop apps, and the Files app on iPhone. I’ll also cover Google Docs, photos, and the limits that trip people up.

What moves cleanly and what needs a little help

Before you pick a method, it helps to know what you’re moving. I’m using my demo Google account for a made-up business, Bluebird Landscaping. Its Bluebird Landscaping folder holds job photos, a crew schedule spreadsheet, invoices, and a Google Doc proposal.

Regular files like PDFs, JPGs, Excel workbooks, and Word documents copy over as they are. If you’ve ever used Drive to save Word documents in Google Drive, those .docx files are ready for iCloud already.

Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are different. They live inside Google’s editors, so they need to be turned into real files, like .docx or .xlsx, before iCloud Drive can hold them. Google’s download tools do that conversion for you, and I’ll show you where.

Here’s the other thing to check first: space. Apple says every iCloud account starts with 5 GB of free storage. If your Drive folder is bigger than your free iCloud space, the upload stops partway, so look at your iCloud storage before you start.

• Small batch (a few files or one folder): Method 1, download and upload in a browser.
• A whole Drive or a big folder: Method 2, Google Takeout.
• You already have both apps on a PC or Mac: Method 3, copy between the folders.
• Phone only: Method 4, the Files app on iPhone or iPad.

Method 1: Download from Google Drive, then upload at iCloud.com

This is the simplest way, and it works on any Windows PC or Mac with a browser. You don’t install anything.

1. Open drive.google.com and go to the folder with your files.
2. Click the first file or folder, then hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac) and click the others.
3. Right-click one of the selected items and choose Download.
4. Save the download, and unzip it if Drive packed the items into a .zip file.

If you need a refresher on picking items, my guide on how to select multiple files on Google Drive shows every shortcut.

In my demo, I selected the Hillcrest job photos 2026 folder and 2026 Crew Schedule.xlsx. Drive showed 2 selected at the top, and the right-click menu had Download near the top of the list.

Because I picked more than one item, Drive zipped them into a single .zip download. A single regular file downloads as itself. If the zip step annoys you, there are ways to download from Google Drive without zipping.

Now the iCloud side. I don’t have an Apple account to test with, so these steps come straight from Apple’s iCloud.com guide:

1. Go to icloud.com/iclouddrive and sign in with your Apple Account.
2. Open the folder you want the files in, or stay at the top level.
3. Click the File Upload button in the iCloud Drive toolbar, select your unzipped files, and click Upload.
4. Or drag the files from your desktop straight into the iCloud Drive window, or onto a folder in it.

Apple says the upload progress shows in the sidebar on the right. If you don’t see the upload button, you’re probably inside Recently Deleted or Shared, so step out of that folder first.

Convert Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides first

A Google Doc can’t go into iCloud as a Google Doc. Open it in Drive, then go to File > Download and pick an Office format.

For my Hillcrest HOA Proposal 2026 document, the Download submenu listed Microsoft Word (.docx), PDF, ODT, Plain Text, Rich Text, Web Page (zipped), EPUB, and Markdown. I’d pick Word if you’ll keep editing it, or PDF if it’s final.

Sheets work the same way (choose Microsoft Excel), and so do Slides (choose Microsoft PowerPoint). Do this for every Google file in the folder you’re moving, or you’ll end up with gaps in iCloud.

How does this work?

Nothing moves cloud to cloud here. Drive hands your browser a copy, and iCloud.com takes a copy from your computer. The originals stay in Google Drive until you delete them yourself.

That makes it safe but slow for big folders, since every byte goes down and back up over your connection. If a download won’t start at all, check my fixes for when you cannot download files from Google Drive.

Pro tip: Download one folder at a time and upload it into a matching folder in iCloud Drive. It’s much easier to spot a missing file when the folder names line up on both sides.

Method 2: Export your whole Drive (or one folder) with Google Takeout

Google Takeout is Google’s export tool. It’s the best fit for the people who searched for a “backup” from Google Drive to iCloud, because it packs everything into a few large archives. Here’s how I set it up.

1. Go to takeout.google.com and sign in.
2. Click Deselect all, then scroll down and check Drive only.
3. Click All Drive data included if you want to narrow it to certain folders.

With Drive checked, the top of the page said 1 of 67 selected. Under Drive, I could see three buttons: Multiple formats, Advanced settings, and All Drive data included.

Click Multiple formats if you want to check which file types your Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides will be exported as. You want regular document formats that iCloud Drive can store.

Pick just the folders you need

Clicking All Drive data included opens Drive content options. I unchecked Include all files and folders in Drive and then checked only Bluebird Landscaping.

The dialog then said that only files in these folders would be exported. Click OK, scroll to the bottom, and click Next step.

Choose where the export goes (iCloud is not on the list)

Step 2 is called Choose file type, frequency & destination. Open the Transfer to drop-down and you’ll see what I mean about the two clouds not talking.

My list had four choices: Send download link via email, Add to Drive, Add to Dropbox, and Add to Box. There was no iCloud option, and no OneDrive option either in my account. Google’s help page mentions OneDrive as a destination, so your list may differ, but iCloud isn’t one of them.

So choose Send download link via email. You’ll download the archive to your computer and then upload it to iCloud yourself.

Set the file type and size

Leave Export once selected. Under File type & size, keep .zip, because it opens on almost any computer. Google says .tgz may need extra software on Windows.

The size drop-down was on 2 GB for me, with a note that the output might be delivered in multiple files. Google splits big exports into several archives at that size. Pick a larger size if you’d rather have fewer files.

Then click Create export. I stopped here in my demo account and didn’t create one. Google says the email can take anywhere from minutes to days, depending on how much data you have.

Once the email arrives, download each archive, unzip it, and upload the folders to iCloud Drive with Method 1 or copy them into the iCloud Drive folder with Method 3. If you want to peek inside first, see how to view and unzip ZIP files.

How does this work?

Takeout builds a copy of your Drive on Google’s servers, zips it, and gives you a link. It doesn’t delete or move anything in Drive.

Two limits matter. Google says each archive expires after about 7 days, and each one can be downloaded 5 times. After that, you’ll need to create a new export, so don’t let the email sit.

Pro tip: Make your iCloud folders before you unzip anything. Takeout keeps your Drive folder structure inside the archive, so you can drag the matching folders across one by one.

Method 3: Copy between Google Drive for desktop and iCloud Drive

If you already sync both services to the same computer, this is the method the old version of this post liked best, and it’s still a good one. You copy between two folders like any other files.

On a Windows PC

1. Install Google Drive for desktop, sign in, and let it add the Google Drive folder to File Explorer.
2. Install iCloud for Windows from the Microsoft Store and sign in with your Apple Account.
3. In iCloud for Windows, click the arrow next to iCloud Drive, turn it on, and click Done.
4. Open File Explorer, select files in the Google Drive folder, and copy them (Ctrl+C).
5. Click iCloud Drive in the navigation pane and paste them (Ctrl+V).

Apple notes that you have to set up iCloud on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac before iCloud for Windows will work. It also says iCloud for Windows isn’t supported for a Managed Apple Account, which some schools and companies use.

If Drive for desktop won’t open, here’s what to do when you can’t launch Drive for desktop.

On a Mac

1. Install Google Drive for desktop and sign in. Google Drive shows up in the Finder sidebar.
2. Turn on iCloud Drive in System Settings > iCloud > Drive > Sync this Mac.
3. Open two Finder windows, one on Google Drive and one on iCloud Drive.
4. Select files in the Google Drive window and drag them into the iCloud Drive window.

Keep an eye on disk space on a Mac. Both services may keep local copies, and my post on whether iCloud Drive takes up space on a Mac explains how that works.

How does this work?

Each app watches its own folder. When you paste a file into the iCloud Drive folder, iCloud uploads it in the background. Google Drive for desktop works the same way for its folder, so you’re really copying from one synced folder to another.

Google says that with streaming, files take almost no space until you open them, while mirroring keeps a full copy on your computer. Either way, copying a streamed file pulls it down first, so a big folder still needs free disk space and time.

One catch: Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides in the Drive folder open in your web browser. They aren’t Office files, so convert them with File > Download (Method 1) and put those copies in iCloud Drive instead.

Pro tip: Copy, don’t move, on the first pass. Once you’ve opened a few files from iCloud Drive and they look right, you can clean up the Google side.

Method 4: Use the Files app on iPhone or iPad

On an iPhone, Apple’s Files app can show Google Drive and iCloud Drive side by side. I don’t have an iPhone in my test setup, so I’m following Apple’s support article word for word here.

1. Install the Google Drive app from the App Store and sign in.
2. Open the Files app and tap Browse.
3. Tap the More button (three dots), tap Edit, turn on Google Drive, and tap Done.
4. Open Google Drive in Files, touch and hold a file, and tap Move.
5. Choose a folder in iCloud Drive and tap Copy. On iOS 26 you then tap Done. On iOS 18 and earlier, Apple says to tap Move again.

It’s best for a handful of files, like a signed contract or a few PDFs. For pictures, my guide on how to save multiple photos from Google Drive to iPhone covers the Photos app side.

How does this work?

The Files app talks to the Google Drive app on your phone, so it can read your Drive files and write a copy into iCloud Drive. The button says Copy because the original stays in Google Drive.

How to move photos from Google Drive to iCloud

Photo questions show up a lot for this topic, so here’s the short version. If your photos sit in a Drive folder, they’re regular JPG or PNG files. Any of the four methods above moves them into iCloud Drive.

I’d use Method 1 or Method 2 for a large photo folder, like my Hillcrest job photos 2026 folder. Google zips the photos, and you unzip and upload them. For a slow upload, see my tips to upload large files to Google Drive, since the same habits help on the iCloud side.

If your photos are in Google Photos rather than Drive, that’s a separate product. In Takeout, check Google Photos instead of Drive in step 1, and the rest of Method 2 stays the same.

Things to keep in mind before you delete anything in Drive

• There’s no direct transfer. Google Takeout has no iCloud destination, and Apple’s guides only describe uploading or copying files you already have on a device.
• Check your iCloud space. Free iCloud accounts start with 5 GB. A Drive folder bigger than that won’t fit until you get more storage.
• Very large single files. Apple’s Mac Help says an item marked Ineligible is usually over the 50 GB limit for one file or folder in iCloud Drive.
• Takeout links don’t last. Each archive expires after about 7 days and can be downloaded 5 times.
• Shared files. If an owner turned off downloading for a file shared with you, you can’t download it. Ask the owner for a copy.
• Work or school accounts. I tested in a personal Google account. In Google Workspace, your admin controls whether you can download your data, so Takeout may be turned off for you. My page on Google Drive personal vs business covers other differences.

Once everything is in iCloud, open a few files from each folder before you delete the Google copies. If you’ll stop using Drive on that computer afterward, here’s how to turn off Google Drive sync without losing files.

Moving between clouds? These guides help too

• transfer OneDrive files to Google Drive
• Google Drive storage full with no files
• fix download quota exceeded
• Google Drive vs Dropbox

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