Sync Troubleshooting
With Ember Plus, Ember keeps your library in sync across your devices on its own. You don't have to do anything. If an entry, a person, or an edit seems to be missing somewhere, work through the steps below.
Requirements
- An active Ember Plus subscription (monthly, yearly, or lifetime).
- An iCloud account signed in on every device, with enough free iCloud storage for your entries and the photos and files in them.
- iCloud sync switched on in Ember's Settings → Backup & Sync on each device.
Check Apple's iCloud status
Ember syncs through Apple's CloudKit, directly into your own iCloud. There is no Ember server in the middle, so when iCloud itself has a bad day, sync does too. Apple's System Status page is the first thing to check. If iCloud Account & Sign In or CloudKit shows a problem, wait it out: Ember retries on its own and nothing on your device is lost.
Confirm your setup
Two Apple accounts matter, and each one must be the same on every device:
- Your iCloud account decides where your library is stored. Two devices on different iCloud accounts will never see each other's data.
- Your App Store account decides whether Ember Plus is active. If a device is signed in to a different App Store account, it won't see your subscription and sync stays off there.
The two accounts don't have to be the same as each other. Many people shop with one Apple ID and use another for iCloud, and that's fine. What matters is that each device matches the others. Simplest of all: use one Apple ID for everything.
On each Mac
- Open System Settings and click your name at the top. Confirm you're signed in to iCloud with the same Apple ID as your other devices.
- In iCloud, make sure there's free space in your storage, and that Ember is allowed to use iCloud (under Saved to iCloud / Apps Using iCloud).
- Open the App Store app and check the account at the bottom left. It should be the one you bought Ember Plus with.
- In Ember, open Settings → Backup & Sync and confirm iCloud sync is on.
Checking the sync status
There are two places to look.
The sidebar. At the very bottom of the sidebar, a small status row always tells you what sync is doing. Click it to jump to the sync settings.
| You see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Backed up 2 min ago (solid cloud) | All good. This device has sent and received everything. |
| Backing up… (two circling arrows) | A sync is in progress. Leave Ember open until it finishes, especially after a big import. |
| Waiting for network… or iCloud is busy, retrying… (clock) | Ember is waiting on your connection or on iCloud. This isn't an error: nothing is lost, and Ember retries automatically. |
| Backup paused (cloud with a warning mark) | Something needs your attention. Click it: the reason is shown in Settings. |
| Backup is off (crossed-out cloud) | Sync is switched off on this device, or Ember Plus isn't active for this App Store account. |
Settings → Backup & Sync. Here you'll find the current state, the time of the last successful backup, the switch to turn sync on or off for this device, and, when something is wrong, a plain explanation of it.
When sync is paused
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| iCloud storage is full | Free up space in System Settings → your name → iCloud, or upgrade your iCloud plan. Sync resumes on its own. |
| Sign in to iCloud on this Mac | Sign in to iCloud in System Settings, then relaunch Ember. |
| iCloud is restricted on this Mac | iCloud has been limited by Screen Time or a device-management profile. Lift the restriction, or ask whoever manages the Mac. |
| Signed in. Relaunch to resume sync. | Quit Ember with ⌘Q and open it again. |
| Couldn't apply cloud changes | Ember will try again on its next launch. If the message keeps coming back, send us logs. |
| N record(s) failed to sync | Try Force Full Resync. If that doesn't clear it, send us logs. |
Sync looks stuck?
If the status looks healthy but something still hasn't shown up on another device, open Settings → Backup & Sync and click Force Full Resync on the device that has the missing data.
This re-sends your whole library from that device to iCloud. Nothing is deleted, and it can't overwrite newer changes made elsewhere: if another device has a more recent version of something, that version is kept. You can watch progress in the sidebar.
After a large import
If you've just brought in years of entries from Day One, Apple Journal, or an Ember archive, the first sync can take a while, especially with lots of photos. iCloud limits how fast any one app can upload, so you may see iCloud is busy, retrying… for a stretch. That's expected.
Connect to your fastest Wi-Fi, keep Ember open (it can be in the background, just not quit), and let the sidebar work its way back to Backed up. Once that first upload is done, everyday changes sync in seconds, one at a time.
Size limits
Nothing is ever limited in the editor or on your device. Anything over these limits stays fully usable on the Mac where you created it. It just isn't sent to iCloud until it's back under the limit.
- Text: a journal entry or story longer than 500,000 characters won't sync. Text that's heavy in emoji or non-Latin scripts can hit iCloud's per-record size cap (about 900 KB of text) a little sooner. Split it into two entries and both will sync.
- Attachments: each photo, video, or file must be smaller than 250 MB to sync. Larger files stay on the device they were added on.
- Graph layout never syncs, by design. Each screen gets its own arrangement. See what syncs.
"My edit disappeared"
If the same thing was changed on two devices before either could sync, one of two things happens:
- You had the entry or story open in the editor. Ember merges both sets of changes line by line. If the two edits touched the very same lines, both versions are kept side by side as a conflict for you to review.
- Neither device had it open. The most recent edit wins, and the older version isn't thrown away. It's saved for 30 days under Settings → Backup & Sync → Recently overwritten. Click Restore to bring it back, and it syncs to your other devices again.
Setup is correct, but sync still doesn't work
To see what's going on, we need a log from the device (or devices) that aren't syncing. Ember writes one automatically, so there's nothing to switch on first.
- Quit Ember with ⌘Q, then open it again.
- Wait at least one minute with an internet connection. This gives the log a full sync cycle to record.
- Choose Help → Export Logs… from the menu bar (it's also at the bottom of Settings → Backup & Sync) and save the zip.
- Choose Help → Contact Support to write to us, and attach the zip. A subject like "Sync not working with correct setup" helps us find it fast.
<private> before it's saved to the log. You can open the zip and read every line before you send it.