Notes not syncing or uploading to iCloud After iOS 13 Update

Also, just FYI, there is a recent article regarding the syncing issues. Apple admits that there is a major problem. There is no mention about when it will be fixed. My guess is within the next month... at least I hope.

In my case Mac on Catalina, iPhone on iOS 13 and iPad on iOS 13. New notes and changes from iPhone or iPad sync to Cloud and to Mac, but new notes and changes from Mac do not sync. Turned iCloud Notes off/on again, same behavior afterwards.

In the process lost a few days worth of new notes on the Mac which were not synced to the Cloud. Would have thought not yet synced changes should be kept locally, but alas, no, they just disappeared, and turning iCloud Notes back on created a new notes database, so it's all gone now. :(

My case, I have iPad(13.1.2), iPhone (13.1.2) and Mac (OS Catalina). And I have problems with all devices and from the page iCloud.com, it takes time to make changes between devices or simply never synchronize. I've already contacted Apple support, but they haven't been able to fix it, they've recommended me to pass my iCloud notes to save directly from the iPad, I've deactivated and activated iCloud notes countless times, and I've even started each device from scratch without using an iCloud backup, but none works.

I can't believe this is happening, I have all my businesses and collaboration with employees and partners shared in notes (20 people, around 35 devices), and now communication is completely broken, we lost so much important data...

I can't describe how mad I am without using one million bad words. And I don't understand how company this big can fail so hard, they can even handle NOTES... Are they employing people with IQ 30 as programmers or what?

Only reason I go with notes is because "it's Apple, it's safe, it's rock solid"... Windows 95 on Internet is more rock solid than this joke...

still not working; it renders the Notes app for anyone that has more than one Apple device, useless. Back to Evernote for me; I can’t go days without a way to track daily works and have a single version of the truth across my devices.

I am having the same issue. It sometimes will update my iOS devices if I update a note from iCloud.com but only sometimes. Very hit or miss. Nothing updates if I update the note from an iOS device or macOS Catalina.

I had this issue, and may have stumbled upon a solution.

First, the problem:

iPhone synced everywhere

iCloud.com only synced to iPhone

iPad synced nowhere

I moved all notes back to the default Notes folder using my iPhone. (To clarify, the default Notes folder is the one you cannot delete). I verified that this move worked on iCloud.com, then removed all the folders I had created.

This resulted in no folder structure on iPhone or iCloud.com, but full folder structure was still on iPad an hour or so later. (Aha!).

I then removed all folders from iPad, switched off iCloud sync for Notes on iPad, deleted the Notes app... and after a few minutes, downloaded the app and switched on iCloud sync for Notes again. I then waited for all notes to sync back.

I then created my original folder structure on iPhone and WAITED FOR IT TO SYNC across all devices.

Once that happened, I moved all notes to the right folders and then it just started working well.

I hope this can help someone else!

RESOLVED. Your suggestion lead to the solution. I updated (10/09/19) all my i-devices MacBook (Catalina), iPad and iPhone, which resulted in my NOTES app not synching notes among devices. After reading your proposed solution, I updated the REMINDER app on iPad but MacBook did not have an update available for the REMINDERS app. I then deleted REMINDERS app from my MacBook and also from my iPad. I waited a few minutes and then re-downloaded the REMINDERS app and reinstalled on both devices. Immediately after performing the aforementioned steps my NOTES app synched across all of my i-devices. I never would have made the connection to work on the REMINDERS app in order to fix the NOTES app. Kudos to you on the brilliant yet simple fix.

Well, its 'sort of almost but not quite' working... So far I've just been testing between iCloud web, iPad and iPhone. Things DO sync, but VERY slow (like minutes, compared with seconds before I updated to ios13 and Catalina).

I am wondering (guessing) whether the new Notes and Reminders is putting some massive load on Apple iCloud sync servers, and that is causing the initial delay in sync, and then I wonder whether, when users start editing UNsynced notes on multiple devices some sort of sync database gets corrupted and then it never works again. This is what I suspect; so far, after deleting PLISTS file on Mac and NOT restarting Notes on Mac, my iCloud web, iPad, and iPhone DO sync, albeit VERY slowly.

I am just about to spark up Notes on Mac and see if that is now syncing, or if that kills the whole thing again....

Yep, the moment I put the Mac back in the mix, it all screws up and nothing works again.

This is so screwed up Apple. You need to fix this.

I wonder if there is anyway to delete the Notes app on Mac reboot, then reinstall and see if that cleans it all up again and keeps everything in sync?

Will try that now...

How did you delete REMINDERS on Mac. I try to do that and I get a dialogue saying

"“Reminders” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by macOS."

I think we are REALLY clutching at straws here. Apple NEEDS too FIX this, its crazy!!!

Believe or not this worked for me. Actually, I think Reminders syncing, not the app itself, is what was required, sort of “kicking the plumbing”. So I went to iCloud configuration, disabled Reminders syncing, restarted the phone (just in case) and re-enabled Reminders. Listo!! When I looked back to Notes, it was hard at work syncing.

OK I have a solution. Firstly all i have is a new iphone 11pro, a dell laptop and an iphone X.

Basically all my notes had disappeared from my new iphone 11pro but they are all still on the icloud on my Dell.

This is what I did. i reset my iphone 11pro to factory by going into settings, general and then at the bottom click reset and then erase all content and settings. this resets to factory.

I then did the setup using my WIFI but used manual as the option and used my last good backup of icloud i had from my iphone X.

All notes did reappear and it seems that any update i make on icloud.com on my dell syncs to the new iphone 11pro within a minute and vice versa.

hope this helps.

As of the latest patches and updates from Apple, the Notes experience is entirely broken.

With considerable testing across three devices, none are capable of properly syncing. New notes on any device, remain on that device. And edits from an updated note, remain as well.

I have thousands of notes and rely heavily on the ability to sync properly. This is very unfortunate, and I believe the only fix will have to come from Apple. Hopefully they'll decouple the code base dependencies from the Reminder app. Notes should have its own base anyway.

As for alternatives? None have worked as well as Apple's Notes. Shame. There's no clear path to migrating off of Apple Notes either.

Also a warning. Do not attempt to stop and start notes from a device via toggle of the iCloud setting. Doing so will cause you to lose any new notes created on the device, as well as edited notes. I've lost a few dozen in an attempt to correct this issue.

My problem seems identical: not uploading from iphone iOS 13.1.2 to iCloud, but syncing well from Mojave/iCloud to iPhone.

Same with iPad (iOS 12.4.2).

Related: Notes app on Mojave keeps syncing. Here, logging out the iPhone seemed to help (for a while). Not tried the other tips about trashing a certain Notes system/prefs files from Mac.

Still waiting for a note from 48 hrs ago to sync to iCloud from iPhone. No thoughts on a solution.