Restoring notes to iPhone 4

Copy and paste to e-mail. They should save to your backup, however.

So what you're saying is that the only place the data of your notes was in, was in the backup of your 3GS? They SHOULD restore from backup, but I've got to ask...if they were that important, why didn't you have another backup of them?

A rule of thumb in the digital world is to have three backups of everything, each backup being on a different medium, preferably, or at least in three different places. In other words, don't keep all your eggs in one basket.

In theory, it SHOULD. However, please take note of what I said, tri-backup-wise, going forward. It will save you a lot of grief and worry in the future, guaranteed. 🙂

When did you return the iPhone? What version of iTunes did you have, and what iOS was running on the iPhone when you took the backup?

Read this article ( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1766), section titled "*About Syncing and Backups*", sub-section "*iTunes will back up the following information:*".

yes, when you add your iPhone 4 and choose restore from backup, it will backup your notes and put them on your new phone. The issue might be is do you want to restore a new phone from a backup?

docs44 wrote:
The issue might be is do you want to restore a new phone from a backup?

Can you elaborate on what you mean here? This should make no difference, unless I don't understand what you mean. :-|

EBSkater wrote:

docs44 wrote:
The issue might be is do you want to restore a new phone from a backup?

Can you elaborate on what you mean here? This should make no difference, unless I don't understand what you mean. :-|

Well, when you connect your iPhone 4 it will ask do you want to restore from a backup or as a new phone. I think it's better to install it as a new phone than restore from backup. Some of the past issues with new phones and new IOS is people restoring from a backup. The 4 is different from the 3G and GS. Everything you have on your current phone will be in iTunes. You still have to manually add your email accounts even if you restore from backup. So the only benefit to restoring from a backup is you keep your notes and any photos you have taken on your phone. The photos you can easily get off your phone and then add them back in through iTunes. So the only thing you lose is notes and you can email those or copy and paste. So why start a new phone off with old files from a previous version and older IOS that were upgraded to IOS 4? Better to start fresh. Just make sure you back up your old phone so that any purchases are transferred, get the pictures off your old phone and then put them back in through iTunes.

The new iOS and iTunes seems to communicate differently, in regards to backups. When I've restored from backup (the only way to install the betas was to restore them to the phone, then restore from backup), my iPhone was exactly the way it was before I restored it. All apps had my saved scores and whatnot. I actually could not tell that I had just wiped the phone minutes before...

Mail included, I didn't have to re-enter any of my mail settings...

EBSkater wrote:
The new iOS and iTunes seems to communicate differently, in regards to backups. When I've restored from backup (the only way to install the betas was to restore them to the phone, then restore from backup), my iPhone was exactly the way it was before I restored it. All apps had my saved scores and whatnot. I actually could not tell that I had just wiped the phone minutes before...

Mail included, I didn't have to re-enter any of my mail settings...

That's cool on mail. Previously you had to enter in all the mail settings again for each account. I still think it's better to install as a new phone and start from scratch for most people. For some who have games and that type of stuff it might not be.

Oh believe me, entering all my settings in again was QUITE annoying. 😠

I will personally enter in my stuff and if I experience any issues, will be doing ALL troubleshooting that does not involving as restoring as new, haha. 🙂 I've got my iOS 4 3GS setup nicely, and would like to transition to the iPhone 4 in 30 minutes (that's about how long my backup takes to restore), instead of 5 hours (by checking all 3GS settings against the iPhone 4 settings...).

Suggestion: Make a duplicate copy of your backup file, as it's pretty easy for iTunes to overwrite it. On a mac, it's saved in user/library/application support/mobilesync--windows, I don't know (but I think it's inside a MobileSync folder--google should tell you). Just copy it to a new location.

Then, if by some chance the notes don't restore to the iPhone or you want to set the phone up new, you should be able to use an extractor utility on that old backup file, to recover the text of the notes.

Here's an example of an iPhone backup extractor utility, though there are others out there:
http://homepage.mac.com/vaughn/msync/

These programs can pull the notes (and other things) from the backup file that is saved on your computer.

That is correct. I did a restore and my Notes were not restored. I called Apple/iPod support and they said the same thing. I have backups on my external drives but don't know how to access this file yet. I just want my old notes and must find a way to extract only this file. I tried a extractor program but this did not allow to switch to another drive that contain my old backup.