Notes not syncing or uploading to iCloud After iOS 13 Update

Actually I believe it’s not as simple as that, folks are reporting a whole range of behaviours. In my case, iPhone and iPad and iCloud (via browser) are now all fine sync both ways (but much slower than before ios13) but the moment I put my MAC in the loop (notes on Mac) the sync breaks, which makes it seem (at least in my case) to be a Mac/iCloud problem

Sorry to hear that.

But I SHUT DOWN, not rebooted, my iMac.

Then I turned off all iOS devices completely (Power off) and waited a few minutes.

Started up iOS devices only, waited a few minutes, again.

Finally I started up the iMac, and it worked.

Keeping my fingers crossed. I am on Mojave, but I still believe it is/was iOS/server caused.

PS: I am based in Europe (Amsterdam). If it is a server issue, your mileage may vary?

Deep breath. I downloaded the latest (as in the past 24 hours) updates to iPhone, iPad, and Catalina. And it works! Notes are syncing across ALL devices! And even VoiceMemos now downloads recording from Watch to iPhone. So far so good!

I had the same issue. After the today's last update to Catalina, iOS, and iPad OS (13.1.3), it is working.

I used iCloud in Safari to check everything that was not synchronized and copy-paste there, then I turned off and on the Notes sync on iCloud configuration on each device MacBook, iPhone, and iPad; then sync started to work.

In the beginning, it was a bit slow, but I'm happy to say that it's working now.

Yes, like others, I regret upgrading to Catalina. Even with the third update today (16 October), the notes on my Mac will not sync with notes on my iPad or iPhone (yes, I've updated both of these devices. I've tried some of the suggestions in this post, nothing works. So, what DOES work, is I no longer use the Apple Notes program. I like it, but need to have this sync with all my devices, so I'm now using Microsoft Notes. Syncs with no problems.

Hey so you like Microsoft OneNote? I went back to Evernote when Apple Notes broke this week — plus had to erase my whole computer to go back to a working OS.

Is OneNote a keeper so far? Or will you be trying other alternatives?

i may try it as well. Notes doesn’t have a reasonable TXT or CSV export so I’m reluctant to go back after this.

Why should it work with the new updates. This issue is not even mentioned in the fixes. So Apple in my opinion is not acknowledging the problems they have caused.

Many of the people here that complain about the sync not working, have been migrated from Evernote or some other tool in the past to iCloud. I consider these people power users with hundreds or thousands of notes. We trust on this in our workflow on a daily basis. When it breaks it is bad, but my frustration is more about the fact that they do not acknowledge the issue.

This might be well be the starting for me migrating away from iCloud service and only use the basic components you need to use anyway. The fact that Apple does not provide any export methods makes this transition a bit more complicated, but I have seen some web page describing how you can leverage automation with some Apple Script to extract the notes and import them into Evernote or other notes app.

Let’s see if the updates fixes my issues. And hope this never occurs in the future and Apple, although silent on the subject have seen our comments and understand the struggles we have been through as “beta” release testers.

The previous poster is correct.. even though i have spoken to apple and many other have, the issue was not mentioned in todays update... As of now.. notes in IOS are still not updating to the cloud and migrating back down to my MBP.... Notes created in Catalina are in fact showing up in iCloud.. Im disappointed to say the least in one of the worlds largest company releasing this ********.... I am going to check out evernote today....

I had this issue the whole time while I was in beta. I completely gave up on Notes due to it just not being reliable.

I now have all my devices (iPhone, iPad, MacBook Pro & iMac) out of the beta and up the most recent consumer release.

Still the same issue. They will randomly sync and only portions will sync. Leaving out handwritten notes, the title not updating etc... I tried taking Notes off of iCloud on all devices, restarting all devices and everything. No go. It just seems to not want to sync.

Least they fixed iCloud since the beta. Files just wouldn't sync at all. Now they do consistently. I hope there's a fix to this soon for Notes. It's very frustrating. About to go back to OneNote.

My last attempt was cleaning iCloud notes fully. Started all over, by synching them back folder by folder. It just did not work after about 400 it just stopped. 12h later, still not done. Restarted iPad, again about 100 more synched.. stopping again. Looking at the content, some tables, images, file attachments missing from the notes. I am lost and no idea how to merge 100’s of notes to a different application.

As others have mentioned, even if the number of notes can be the same on all devices, the content can be different as well.

Apple Support still says there is no generic problem with Notes synching, otherwise they should know about it. I referenced this discussion and they still don’t believe it is a big issue.

I have moved the most of my notes from iCloud to a local notes account on a single device. I can no longer trust the synchronisation and want to make sure I don’t loose any more data.

So I was on the phone with a very helpful gentlemen from Apple Support on Tuesday and after we tried many of the things mentioned here and a few more he was stumped as to why this is not working. As many of you have said earlier the app will "fetch" data (handwritten notes don't fetch well) but not reliably (or at all) "push" data. He has left the ticket open and is referring the issue to Engineering.

But, what completely befuddles me is how if this issue was happening during the beta period how did it make to release? This is a first party app and is basically broken at the moment. Even on my iPad the only way I can get it to sync is to quit the app and start it again.

Fingers crossed something is released soon.

Was about to give up on Notes after a week of this frustration. Lost a handful of notes. Recent fix that seems to be working (for now...) - turned off Notes on the device that isn't uploading properly to cloud (for me, it was Catalina MBP). Restarted computer. Then turned notes back on. Without the restart, didn't work.

Note - turning off notes causes any unsynced ones to disappear. I had already lost them, so I didn't mind doing it again...

IMPORTANT: macOS Catalina users, do not do what I did and try and force a re-sync as outlined in my feedback to Apple below otherwise you will potentially lose your new Notes like I did. My old MacBook running macOS High Sierra doesn't seem to be impacted by the Note sync issue with iCloud.

After losing 2 very important business meeting notes, I have sent the following defect feedback to Apple. Feel free to copy and paste the same feedback below to Apple if you are experiencing the same problem. This is more of a macOS Catalina issue rather than an iOS13 issue, but I have noticed other users are also experiencing Catalina issues in this thread so I hope this post is appropriate.

---- Feedback to Apple Support ---

https://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html

Summary:

There is a major defect with the new macOS Catalina (v. 10.15) Notes app. Any new notes or updates to existing notes are not syncing with iCloud. Furthermore, new notes are permanently deleted if the user un-syncs notes by un-ticking the "Notes" option in (Notes -> Accounts -> iCloud)

The following was observed for Notes:

1) Syncing iCloud.com to Catalina/iOS works as expected.

2) Syncing iOS to Catalina/iCloud.com works as expected.

3) Syncing MacOS High Sierra to iCloud.com/iOS works as expected.

4) Syncing MacOS Catalina to iCloud.com/iOS is not working.

5) The same iCloud ID is being used across all 4 platforms

6) Spotlight search for missing "Notes" does not return any results.

7) Logging out from the iCloud ID on Catalina does not solve issue

7) Firewall in Catalina was set to "Off" during the above testing.

------- End of Feedback ----

Let's hope Apple fixes the issue in the next Catalina updates.

It still seems to be quite erratic. I’ve had no problem between iCloud and Catalina. None at all. However, my iPhone is driving me crazy. It’s JUST my iPhone after iOS 13 that’s not syncing neither to iCloud or Catalina. It even happened before I updated to Catalina, actually that’s one of the reasons I updated MacOS, to see if it would solve it.

For now, I’m just only opening and editing notes in the LEAST reliable device (the iPhone), because all the other ones (Mac with Catalina, or iCloud) WILL sync to it. It’s the iPhone that won’t catch any new notes or edits.

Hmmm... yes, that is erratic and bizarre. I’ve always found iCloud to be a bit erratic, but things are looking to be worse. Can only keep on posting feedback to Apple and hope they do something about it.