?s on iCloud sharing of non-iBooks pdfs between iPad, iPhone and Macbook

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Background: I've running the latest operating systems and apps on my iPhone, iPad and Macbook. They all show I'm signed in to iCloud. All the relevant apps have been set to use iCloud. If I buy a book from the iBooks store on any of the three devices, it shows up in iCloud on the other two devices within a short amount of time.

My problem is this: (1) When I create or download a pdf file outside of iBooks on either my iPhone or iPad and I then open it in iBooks, it shows up as available in iCloud on the other device, but it never shows up in iCloud as viewed from the Macbook.

A related problem, I think, is: (2) When I download a pdf on the Macbook and open it in iBooks, it doesn't show up in iCloud on the iPhone or the iPad.

I can save pdfs directly to iCloud drive and access them across the devices that way, but I'm curious as to why iBooks on the Macbook behaves differently than on the iPhone and iPad.

Additionally, if anyone can shed some light on the following:

3. I find it odd that iBooks doesn't show up as an app option in iCloud settings/options on any of three devices and that the iBooks data stored in iCloud doesn't show up at iCloud.com.

4. I'm continually bewildered by comments referring to downloading and syncing iBooks (or just "books") using iTunes. I don't see any options for this in my iTunes.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Rick
 
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Hi, rprescot, and welcome to the forums.

iBooks is capable of syncing any data that you "open" with it across other devices that use the same iCloud account. To configure a device to participate, go to Settings -> iCloud -> iCloud Drive and be sure iBooks is enabled. On the Mac, it's System Preferences -> iCloud -> iCloud Drive and enable iBooks.

Although the data is synced via your iCloud account, you will not see it through the web interface to iCloud but it does consume space in the account.

Hope that helps.
 
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Thanks, Ember1205, but you said

"go to Settings -> iCloud -> iCloud Drive and be sure iBooks is enabled. On the Mac, it's System Preferences -> iCloud -> iCloud Drive and enable iBooks."

And that's a problem because there is no iBooks option available on my MacBook in the iCloud Drive options list. ??

These are some tech specs for the device:

OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 (14F2109)
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro12,1

Any suggestions? Thanks, again.
 
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Ah...

Mac OS X 10.11.4 and higher have the sync capability for iBooks. You're running a version that's older.

With the older version, you will have access via iTunes to anything you -purchase- on your other devices, but PDF sync is not available via iCloud Drive.
 
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Thanks, once again, Ember 1205.

I missed that. I assumed that because I have all updates set to occur automatically, my MacBook would have the latest OS. But I'm still running Yosemite. When I check at the App Store, I can download Sierra, so I'll try that. The App Store doesn't offer El Capitan anymore, so I assume it's OK to jump from Yosemite to Sierra.

Just to finish up, is there anything in doing the above I should look out for?

Thanks!

Rick
 

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Just to finish up, is there anything in doing the above I should look out for?

Before going from Yosemite to Sierra, we strongly recommend making a clone backup of your hard drive first. Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to make the clone. Carbon Copy Cloner has a fully functional 30 day trial you can download.
 

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