Apple Defeats Lawsuit Related to iCloud's Measly 5GB of Free Storage

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit this week upheld a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that Apple illegally deceived customers into paying for iCloud storage, according to a court filing. The decision was reported by Law360.

iCloud General Feature
The lawsuit alleged that Apple deceived customers into purchasing iCloud-enabled devices by misleading customers into believing that they can easily keep their iCloud storage usage below the free 5GB limit. In reality, the plaintiffs alleged that users quickly exceed this limit and then must pay for increasingly costly iCloud storage plans. In the U.S., these plans range from 50GB for $0.99 per month to 12TB for $59.99 per month.

In the ruling, three Ninth Circuit judges said the plaintiffs failed to establish that it is "virtually impossible" for them to reduce their storage, or that they will inevitably be forced to pay for iCloud storage. In fact, two named plaintiffs were still on the 5GB tier. The judges added that customers have the option to turn off iCloud at any time.

The case had been dismissed by a U.S. district court in Northern California back in May 2022, and now the appeal to the Ninth Circuit has been dismissed. Barring the extremely unlikely event that the plaintiffs are able to successfully petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, the lawsuit is now over. However, Apple is still facing other iCloud-related lawsuits in both the U.S. and U.K., as complaints about the 5GB tier persist.

Apple launched iCloud in 2011, and the service has been available with 5GB of storage for free since then. By today's standards, 5GB is a low amount of storage, and Apple not increasing the free limit has long been a point of contention.

Tag: iCloud

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Top Rated Comments

AppleSOS Avatar
11 months ago

This is just how Tim Cook operates these days...Less on customer experience, more on bottom-line.

Either way, it's a bad look for the 5GB free iCloud storage. They obviously thought the 5GB was sufficient in 2012 - with everything growing over the past 12 years (file sizes and what we store), this should have at least increased.
They are under no obligation to give out any storage for free. I don't understand this mindset.
Score: 56 Votes (Like | Disagree)
zorinlynx Avatar
11 months ago
It's absolutely amazing how much whining and complaining (and apparently lawyering) people will do over $1 a month.

And really the only reason they charge that at all is so that people don't abandon accounts with tons of data that Apple has to store forever.
Score: 48 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PerfectChaos Avatar
11 months ago
I’m still on the 5GB plan. It’s pretty easy to stay under the limit if you don’t store your photos there…
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)
neuropsychguy Avatar
11 months ago
"In fact, two named plaintiffs were still on the 5GB tier."

Oops.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
stocklen Avatar
11 months ago
How utterly ridiculous.
Even in these comments.

You don't *need* iCloud AT ALL to use the devices. The 5gb although seemingly 'tight' is no such thing - its more than enough for minimal usage and an iCloud backup of one device.

If you need more storage then buy the appropriate level of iPad / iPhone device in the first place. If you have thousands of photos then you have a choice - store them on the device and get one with enough memory... or pay for a cloud storage service such as iCloud.

Turn it all off - nobody's forcing you to use it.

Americans really will try their luck in the courts for literally anything - and there are lawyers willing to take their money for it.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rickdollar Avatar
11 months ago
The jump from 200GB to 2TB is unfortunate. Still nothing in between?
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)