iCloud data use

[Bob Hawkins]

My wife has been advised on her iPad mini running iOS 9.3.4 she has 200MB remaining on her 5GB iCloud account. Her iPad mini is her sole Apple device, which she has had for about three and a half years.
1. She was unaware she had an iCloud account. I can only assume it was created at some point in her original setting up process.
2. I am confused by the information the iPad mini displays:
a. iCloud>Storage contains 12 items (including iCloud Drive, which I upgraded to yesterday in ignorance and which displays nothing) such as Photos, Mail, Contacts Calendars, etc. Only Calendars of the sliding On/Off buttons is on; Photos is not.
b. iCloud>Storage>Manage Storage displays 14 apps. The largest is Photo Library with 720MB, the next largest is 2.3MB and the remaining apps are all in kilobytes. All are switched on. Nowhere do I see Mail content and do not know whether this constitutes part of the storage.
I do not understand how iCloud works. I should like to see the 4.8GB iCloud content in detail in order to know its composition and what to delete and how to delete it so that there is no prospect of reaching the 5GB limit. Internet searches suggest there is nothing such as a file manager that would provide this information. As someone who knows so little of how Apple operates, I should appreciate the advice of anyone who can enlighten me.

 

[J. A.]

What you see in iCloud, below Storage, are the apps that can be synced by iCloud, such as Photos, Mail, Contacts, ... Those enabled are synced by iCloud, in your case it's Contacts only.
You'll also find Backup there. If backups to iCloud are enabled, this will show you when the the iPad has been backed up for the last time. You'll also find "Backup Now", so you can start a backup manually. Keychain, below Backup, will save passwords, and Find my iPhone is an important security feature.

In iCloud - Storage - Manage Storage, you'll find apps that could be backed up by iCloud. You can disable those that don't need to be backed up - online storage, e.g.

If she doesn't use her iCloud account for emails, it's possible that you won't find anything in iCloud. To find out the amount Mail uses, go to Settings - General - Storage & iCloud Usage - Storage - Manage Storage. You should find it there.