Not getting 2FA on Apple iCloud

[tclau]

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What is the problem you are having with rclone?

Tried many times to integrate with Apple iCloud. Never ever get the 2FA authentication prompt, it goes to error immediately. The iCloud “Advanced Data Protection” is OFF and the Access iCloud Data on the Web is Green (ON). I also never get an email notification that I was trying to connect to iCloud. Also, never got any 2FA pop-up on my iphone with the security code.

I can login to iCloud via browser successfully so the login and password are good.

Appreciate your help.

Run the command 'rclone version' and share the full output of the command.

Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)

Apple iCloud

The command you were trying to run (eg rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp)

Please run 'rclone config redacted' and share the full output. If you get command not found, please make sure to update rclone.

Paste config here

A log from the command that you were trying to run with the -vv flag

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Paste  log here

[asdffdsa (jojothehumanmonkey)]

welcome to the forum,

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Icloud connect not working: HTTP error 400

This is a good test. I did the same, but just with defining a new config. I got the same error. It turns out we are not alone. See Invalid Session Token while connecting to iCloud · Issue #8587 · rclone/rclone · GitHub which also has a suggested workaround. Sounds like mixed luck on the workaround.

[sanjay_kumar]

The reason you’re not getting a 2FA prompt with rclone is likely because Apple blocks unrecognized logins. The easiest fix is to create an app-specific password in your Apple ID account under Security → App-Specific Passwords and use that in rclone instead of your normal password. Also, make sure your device is trusted and you’re running the latest version of rclone, as older versions may not handle iCloud authentication properly.

[asdffdsa (jojothehumanmonkey)]

welcome to the forum,

@sanjay_kumar

create an app-specific password

IMPORTANT: At the moment an app specific password won't be accepted

[tclau]

Thank you for the pointer.

I tried the command

rclone --user-agent="your-own-random-string" config reconnect iclouddrive:

as suggested in the GitHub issue #8587, did not get the 2FA prompt either, same error 400 message.

[tclau]

Thanks Sanjay. I couldn’t find where to set the App Specific Passwords on my iphone iOS 26.0.1. It seems asdffdsa is saying app specific password is not supported currently with rclone. Have you tried it?

[Olive (Olivier Miramand)]

Hello,
The solution is here (this workaround works fine)
Invalid Session Token while connecting to iCloud · Issue #8587 · rclone/rclone

But before you have to install the follow apps to get your token & cookie
iCloud Photos downloader https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_downloader.