How does cloud computing work? In cloud computing, personal and local computers do not do as much work as the computers running the cloud system – there is a workload shift. Both software and hardware demands that occur on the side of the user decreases. The user’s device needs to be able to run the cloud system’s software, and that is about it. Some people may not realize that if they have an email account with a provider such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and more that they are already using a form of cloud computing. The email program does not actually run on the computer, instead it runs on the server of the provider. You log-in to the email account remotely. Using a cloud computing system for storing your digital files works much the same way.