Locating Your iCloud Data Storage | Generated by AI
Here are the most reliable ways to figure out exactly where your iCloud data is physically stored (as of November 2025). Since you’re in Taiwan (TW), your data is not in China — it’s treated as “overseas”/global.
Quick Checks You Can Do Yourself
- Check your Apple ID region setting (this is the #1 indicator)
- On iPhone/iPad: Settings → [your name] → Payment & Shipping → look at the country/region listed
- Or: Settings → [your name] → Media & Purchases → View Account → Country/Region
- If it says “Taiwan” or anything other than “China mainland”, your iCloud data is stored outside China (usually in the U.S., Singapore, or other global Apple data centers).
- Look at iCloud Terms & Conditions language when you log in
- Go to icloud.com on a computer and sign in.
- If you see the regular global terms (operated by Apple Inc. or Apple Distribution International), you’re on global servers.
- If it ever shows “iCloud operated by GCBD” or mentions Guizhou-Cloud Big Data, it’s China (you won’t see this from Taiwan).
- Check the iCloud data center partner notice (official Apple page)
Apple publishes this list:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/111754- Taiwan = “Apple” (global infrastructure)
- China mainland = “Guizhou-Cloud Big Data”
-
Use Apple’s System Status page (indirect clue) Sometimes during outages you’ll see which data center is affected. Taiwan users are grouped with Asia-Pacific/global, never with the separate “China mainland” row.
- Ping iCloud servers (technical method)
Open Terminal (Mac) or Command Prompt (Windows) and run:
ping -c 3 www.icloud.com ping -c 3 www.icloud.com.cn- Taiwan accounts resolve to global IPs (usually in Singapore or U.S.).
- China mainland accounts resolve to .cn domains and GCBD IPs in Guizhou.
Summary for Taiwan Users (2025)
- Your iCloud photos, backups, messages, etc. are stored in Apple-owned or Apple-controlled data centers outside mainland China (mostly U.S. or Singapore for Asia-Pacific).
- Encryption keys are also managed by Apple globally (not handed to a state partner like in China).
- Zero chance your data is in the Guizhou data center unless you deliberately created a +86 China mainland Apple ID.
So unless you specifically set your Apple ID region to “China mainland” and use a +86 phone number, you’re 100% on global servers.