My Passport Wireless Reviews

MyPassportWireless says the auto upload will work faster if MyPassportWireless is left open. Which is true. But if MyPassportWireless isn't open, I don't think auto photo upload works at all. That could use some improvement. Maybe there could be a setting that if the battery is above a certain level, it will auto-upload the photos even with MyPassportWireless closed. Other than that, I really like both MyPassportWireless and my My Cloud. One other thing that would be nice - if I'm scrolling through the photos, when I tap on a pic to see it, when I go back to the list, MyPassportWireless takes me all the way back to the beginning of the list, instead of back to the place I was. So then I have to scroll all the way through all the listed pics to get back to where I was looking. Kind of a pain, because I usually have no idea where i was since you can’t see thumbnails of the pics in the list (thumbnails would be nice). Also, it might be nice if it would show an extra low res pic initially. I know you can tap on the HD button to get the full quality, but even the mid-range quality pics take a long time to display, even with a pretty fast device and connection. So the problem is that if you are trying to scroll through pics to find one, it takes forever because there aren’t any thumbnails to help you find the pic, and it takes so long to load each individual pic one by one that it takes forever.

The product itself is awesome, it does solve a problem that many people have. My problem is mainly with some functionalities. It feels like MyPassportWireless is old and it’s a bit slow. The navigation bar is divided on photos, music and videos. These should be filters not navigation. The animation on screen transition feels sloppy specially the search field. The fact that we can’t rename WDSync folder really bothers me but I can get over. The fact that there are 2 WDSync>WDSync>MyFolders is an issue. I would also want to remove/rename the folders under “public” (I deleted them a few times but it came back). I know these are mainly negative feedback but the goal is to be constructive. The product is great, works well, I realize it’s mainly targeted on non-technical users to have it at home but it’s a great solution for business too and with minor improvements it can be great for both business and consumers.

I have owned a My Cloud drive for 5 years. It was always problematic. One day it stopped working. I could not access it or even find it on my home network. I did some checking and found out Windows 10 stopped allowing local access to NAS devices. No more local access. I logged in to my WD account, and much to my surprise, all my files were there. This works much better. Much more dependable and fast up load and download. This is way faster the One Drive, Drop Box, or ICloud. I use my iPad to take pics of my jewelry and do a first edit on the iPad them upload to My Drive via the iPad app that appears in the “Share” function. I then finish editing on my desktop. The down load speed to my desktop is much faster then from One Drive. Finally this works as it should.

It appears to be alright but I would have to agree it always requests to leave MyPassportWireless open to upload photos or whatever you have set to upload.

The other week I found I couldn’t use MyPassportWireless at all and after a lot of digging, I found the my cloud NAS deleted or removed all of my preset emails not allowing me to access the NAS device. I still don’t know what cause this hiccup or why this happened?

It doesn’t work well at all with 3G service or it’s very slow. Another thing I found is you’re limited on using the templates inside the NAS on your phone or using the phone app you have saved inside the NAS. There are certain iPhone pic settings it will not show when saved as well as I believe the NAS has not been updated to the IPHONE newest pic formatting.

Granted, I am still learning as I go and this could simply be a learning curve I still haven’t figured out yet.

Also, most Work IT departments will not allow the use of the NAS or will not authorize the certification of the use of the NAS as most of those websites are black listed which is very frustrating when you use it for work. It’s a huge process to get it authorized but once it’s done it works really well.

There are some bugs and hiccups that need to be streamlined but once those things are fixed I believe it will be much better.

Number 1: Most important and simple. Need the ability to rename files being saved to MyCloud during the upload process. Right now when I want to save a pdf from Safari to the MyCloud app, I have to save it with whatever default name it has, then open MyPassportWireless , find the file and then rename it. That’s too many steps.
Number 2: Keep the main menu button available from anywhere. Currently you have to return to the top directory of the MyCloud drive to get the menu button back.
Number 3: Improve the file type filters at the bottom (photos, music, videos). It doesn’t seem to work with WD SmartWare shares. It works with shares created in-app.
Number 3: Add support for iCould Drive.

Drive works great. Reasonable controls and setup. (Although I use different software for backups- Syncronicity). I've had it for about 2 years now with no problems. The only headache is if I reboot my router I have to find the drive's new IP address and remap my (Windows) drive letter to it. I've read there are ways to lock that down but once I learned how to find and remap it's not a big deal.

MyPassportWireless was the real pleasant surprise. Works like magic! It seems that once my phone accesses the drive while on my home network, it now has ability to access it from anywhere. No complicated set up. The only complaint is MyPassportWireless often decides the drive is offline. No idea why.

Overall a great product and I'm very pleased with it.

Given the complexities of its job, the WD MyCloud App has worked fine for me, whether at home or traveling both in the U.S. and overseas. Yes, there are occasional hiccups but their frequency diminishes with each software and firmware update. MyPassportWireless’s functionality is similar to the iPhone Files App. It will open pictures and play stored videos all within MyPassportWireless itself. One can also do activities like create a new directory. This review is about MyPassportWireless - and connection problems mentioned in other reviews might be hardware related - which I will not review here. With the variety of routers, iDevices, computers manufacturers, operating system versions, etc., I’ve been impressed with the Western Digital MyCloud App’s performance.

WD apps are unreliable with every device -- hardwired to desktop, via WiFi with laptop, phone and tablet. It's the WD software, not the hardware. I can access the MyCloud via VLC media player, Lightroom and other software. But WD's own MyCloud software is useless on every platform. Most of the time the admin functions are inaccessible, so it's impossible to fix problems or even safely shut down the MyCloud device (2014, 3TB model). Just tried MyPassportWireless again with my new phone (Moto e4). Same old problems as with the iPhone. Multiple errors, no quick and easy solutions on WD site. The MyCloud device promised much but has been a huge, frustrating time sink. It's nowhere near the ease of use I've found with the excellent WD Passport USB drives and software. I cannot recommend the WD MyCloud to anyone. Stick with the much easier real cloud services until WD fixes these interface problems.

Goes offline all the time even though it gives all indication that it is still online. Photos of my child are not accessible. Not user friendly at all and if you want to put a bunch of photos on it while using a very strong wifi connection, you will still be waiting 30 minutes for it to complete.... that is if it doesn't crash and force you to start all over. At that point you don't know which photos where uploaded and which were not. So, you end up with duplicates and navigating the photos to find the one you are looking for is so frustrating because the interface was designed by computer programmers and not people that have to use it. Tiny thumbnails that you can't figure out if this was the one where she had her eyes closed or if the other one was. No way to see until you fully download it. Overall just a frustrating poorly designed waste of money.

Had my MyBook Live Duo for years, and for the last few years I can’t access it from the apps meaning I have no remote access. WD mishandled the conversion to MyCloud and all apps are useless, only new devices work and they aren’t very good unless at home.

I really do miss it working! I could back up my devices like cell and PC, I have several at home and at parents, and some at in-law for multiple back ups and they too can have access. Now everything is manual and with Windows 10 it’s just awful. Everyone forgot about the end user.

UPDATE: In fact, steer clear completely. WD will create new tech and apps and sites and delete your accounts as well as login info all while making it impossible to move docs off the drives. They will render all equipment useless and you will be forced to start over. Get a real server and toss this garbage to the trash before you’re stuck.

MyPassportWireless used to be alright and I used it to make local backups of my pictures. However, recent updates have ruined it. MyPassportWireless is no longer able to work locally and requires cloud access to be enabled. Not only does it fail to work locally, but if you have cloud access disabled and try to use MyPassportWireless, MyPassportWireless WILL ENABLE CLOUD ACCESS without your consent and in the background. I kept noticing cloud access was somehow being re-enabled and I traced it back to MyPassportWireless. My network is configured to drop all incoming/outgoing WAN traffic to the mycloud, so I was never in any risk of it actually being public, but they fact that MyPassportWireless enables cloud access hidden in the background is disturbing. Without the ability to use MyPassportWireless locally-only makes the entire MyCloud along with MyPassportWireless useless junk. I suggest everyone look into Synology for the functionality that MyCloud used to support.

When I filled my Apple Cloud Storage, they wanted me to pay monthly. After a little research I purchased 4 terabyte storage that solve the problem for many years. It did give me an issue on connecting at one point but with the update that was solved. My wife and I back up everything with no problem. 4 terabyte is a lot of space for this point in time, I’m sure in the future with technology that will change! The plus is in the other cloud storage if they go down so does your data and you have no access. Mine is always available and be corrected easily through the web site.

The Western Digital My Passport Pro and MyPassportWireless are very useful tools, allowing me to use my iPhone for professional media production, but the entire process is hampered by ridiculously ill-conceived UX design.

When I’m trying to download a file from the drive to my local device to edit in a video editing app (Luma Fusion is my app of choice), the interface has a TINY (and I mean almost invisible) little arrow icon that has some kind of animation indicating a download is happening. There is no progress bar of any sort, so one just has to leave the phone alone while the transfer occurs, not knowing when it will finish. This interface element is so small that if you have even a minor visual impairment, you simply can not see what it’s telling you. Just from an ADA/accessibility standpoint, this aspect of the interface should be changed.

The rest of MyPassportWireless is poorly designed. While you can get it to do what you need, it’s anything but intuitive.

If the developers see fit to update MyPassportWireless to accommodate visually impaired users, I’ll raise my rating. And honestly, the developers absolutely should update the UX to be ADA compliant.

The tool is useful, as I say, but it’s far more difficult than it should be to use.

Not sure what is going on. Using WD discovery, it shows shares and I am able to access content. However, using my WD application on windows PC , it never connects. It shows the password hint, I enter ,it identifies and next screen it shows blank user to pick from drop down and doesn’t accept password. 99% of the time, it says my cloud is locked. However, I can access it using network share.
Try to connect thru app on the phone, it failed to load any content and shows only shares but not folders or content.
It is very lame that hardware and software are not talking to each other seamlessly. Also data retrieving for viewing is also painful.
This is basically a fail setup for me.

I have had my NAS for over 6 months at this point and I can never seem to have it stay online to where my phone and ipad could view files like I intended to be able to.

At first I was super excited to get everything and set it up, and at first when it went offline I thought it was just the process of setting everything up and updates, but as time continued and as I looked into it, it looks like it is a fairly large issue with many others not being able to access files remotely.

Please get this fixed!!! I would love to give this a 5 star review and use it for a long time. I would love for this to solve my data issues and share my content on my network and view my files when I travel and have everything safe at home.

The bad software implementation hurts the hardware. Try restoring some files. It was a nightmare for me. The user interface make it very difficult to multi select. When you can do it, you don’t see thumbnails. File download over the network simply did not work. There should be a way to multi select and download the files. Finally, I was able to transfer the files back to my phone little by little using a USB stick. The original dates from the iPhone were already lost. Perhaps that is a restriction from Apple. I still haven’t figured out how the cloud back up works, and how to access/ restore the files when the hard drive is not available.

I have a separate storage network at home consisting of a gigabit WiFi router, the EX2 and a workstation -this network does not connect to the internet. I have connected the EX2 and my workstation to the gigabit router through Ethernet cables. My goal is to connect my mobile devices such as phones, tablets and laptops to the WiFi router (storage network) and backup the contents of individual devices to the EX2 via WiFi. The WD my cloud app sees my EX2 when my phone is connected to the storage network through WiFi but when I put in the password within MyPassportWireless ’s add device functionality, I get an error stating: “A file already exists at this location or an invalid operation was attempted”

I was able to use a 3rd party app to successfully backup my phone and tablet’s content to the EX2 over the same WiFi network.

So, MyPassportWireless by WD themselves is pointless..

Let’s face it, not everyone feels at home doing networking. I’m not a techie, out of a 0-5 rating a 5 being a network engineer, I’m a 2.8 user. I had little trouble setting up and using this product. I would do any updates available first, then load your data. Mine has been up for over 2 years with no issues. Early firmware had a few bugs but was corrected quickly within the first month I owned it. It updates automatically so set it up and forget it. Network wise I would reserve its IP address in dhcp settings on your router. Windows and IPad very happy using My Cloud so no worries.

This used to be a decent app where I’d use it to back up all the photos on my iPhone which is very important for my job. Then an update came where it wouldn’t automatically backup the pics unless I opened MyPassportWireless . Fine, whatever, maybe they’ll fix it. That was a few years ago. Now I can’t view any pics backed up on MyPassportWireless because I use .HEIC files and MyPassportWireless can’t read these files. I’m not switching to .jpeg files for a specific work reason so MyPassportWireless is useless trash at this point. On top of that, their Mac desktop app doesn’t work on Catalina which is a real inconvenience. Seems to me WD is slipping and no longer the company they once were. They aren’t reliable and definitely not user friendly. I won’t be getting anymore WD products in the future because of this.

The best use for this is for computer backup only. All the other online Cloud Storage options for photo and video have such better user interfaces and software that easy to organize and access from anywhere.

This software takes so long to load. Software for uploading and organizing files is confusing. If I want to view photos away from home it takes forever for them to open and I can only see one at a time.

I wanted to have a safe at home option. But what’s the point of keeping photos if you can’t easily look at them?

This application has to be among my favorite when it comes to viewing content I have saved on myhome network devices. I have much of my stuff in my cloud provider of choice but larger content I keep on the MyCloud and it works well. I wish it would play more video formats as it seems to want to refer to other applications for a few, but all in all extremely functional.

I do wish there was a way to view full file details (at least full file names in a landscape view or simply wrapped) and easier to apply search criteria and filters, but I can live with out them. Without these features I’m hesitant to put more content on the devices that I might need since searching and filters help me find what I need quickly.

It would also be cool if we could have MyCloud sync with a cloud provider (folder destination) of our choosing too. It might already do that but I wouldn’t know as MyPassportWireless immediately closes modals when I attempt to add any cloud providers in app.