Notes not syncing or uploading to iCloud After iOS 13 Update

Have been rigorously testing this problem on 8 devices, which include Ios, ipad os, mojave and catalina. And it looks like Mojave is the only one that consistently syncs notes to icloud.

My workflow is now completely broken.

Absence of forced sync in notes and similarly in Photos app is so frustrating. Sitting around and waiting for the software to decide when it’s a good time to sync is disempowering.

I did find a solution that worked for me. I have three devices that use Notes via iCloud: iPhone, iPad, MacBook (all on latest OS versions). It seems my MacBook was the ultimate culprit. My experience troubleshooting this seemed to point to a sync conflict between the three devices. It was almost as if the devices were competing for which one had the latest version of my Notes.

I removed all three devices from accessing my iCloud Notes via Settings on each device. I then restarted all three devices. I then powered on the iPad and turned Notes back on via Settings and waited for my Notes to sync from iCloud. This took longer than usual. I then tested to see if everything was syncing correctly by making changes to Notes via iCloud.com on a browser and making changes on the iPad to see if they were reflected on iCloud.com. Everything was working, albeit the sync was painfully slow. I then powered on my iPhone and repeated the steps.

I then tested the sync by making a change on the iPhone and it did reflect on the iPad, and vice versa. I never turned Notes back on with the MacBook because while testing, every time I brought the MacBook into the environment it broke everything. Hope that helps.

Running all the latest software on iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro. Notes are syncing between the iPhone, iPad and Notes on iCloud through Safari, but not on the MacBook running MacOS Catalina, which seems to be the problem. The changes made on iPhone, iPad and iCloud appear on MacBook-eventually, but any changes made in the MacBook will not sync. 

I'm having this same issue. I upgraded to IOS 13.1.2 on my iPhone and several iPads, and to Catalina on my iMac and MacBook Air. Ever since then, anything I enter into Notes fails to sync with the other devices. Oddly, AirDrop works fine--I can force a syncronization by opening AirDrop and syncing that way, but it doesn't do it on its own. And, unlike some of the others who have posted here, I'm not having any success in any direction--I've tried making edits on each device, one at a time, to see if it sync'd on the remaining devices, and in each case, it didn't. And P.S. -- My Reminders app is already updated to the latest version. C'mon Apple--help us!!!

Same problem as here. Basically your iPhone is fine and uploading notes to iCloud but notes/ changes to notes made on the Mac do not sync. You can see this best by logging into iCloud.com and seeing that changes from the Mac are not syncing to the server. Each one of us need to contact Apple so they are aware this problem is widespread, even if no solution is currently available, as seems to be the case....

I've been trying to trouble shoot this for the last week. So frustrating.

I created the following folders on each device

Test-iPhone (from the iPhone iOS 13)

Test-Laptop (from Laptop Catalina)

Test-WebInterface (from iCloud.com)

Test-iMac (from Catalina)

Test-iPad (from iPad Pro w/ iPadOS)

Eventually all folders synced except Test-iPad.

I'm getting my iMac and MacBook Pro to sync folders and notes fine with my iPhone 11/iOS13, however my iPad Pro with iPadOS is NOT syncing properly.

Fallon, I did practically the same steps as you and had similar success (albeit very slow to sync whereas before the ios13 update notes would update in seconds), and also like you the moment I brought the Mac into the loop it broke everything. It’s still not reliable for me

I've been having the same problem. Everything else syncs well but only the notes app has been unable to sync. I've updated all of my devices to iOS 13.1.2, iPadOS, and MacOS Catalina but a note I create in one of the devices don't show up on the others.

What worked for me was turn the wifi on my Catalina and Turn my wifi on my phone. Shouldn't have to do this but this did solve it. (I'm normally hard wired for Catalina, and don't always use wifi on phone because it's slower then my phone provider.

I had noticed the past week that Notes syncing across devices and with shared parties a little more laggy. Was easily corrected by closing Notes and relaunching. Figured servers were a little slow with the Catalina roll out.

Made the HUGE mistake of upgrading only ONE of my Macs to Catalina. That is when Notes and syncing just broke. Not to mention a slew of other non-Notes related issues. Keychain, iCloud, credentials, etc.

All my iOS devices are running latest version of iOS13, Macs are on Mojave and one device is on High Sierra. Someone recommended to upgrade all of them to Catalina and that should fix the issues. Doubt it.

Apple Notes not syncing is definitely a problem with Catalina. Notes sync perfectly between my iOS devices. They had been syncing OK with Catalina for about a week, but in the past 3-4 days macOS Catalina is simply ignoring all changes made to Notes on my iPhone and iPad (both running iOS 13). Notes between those 2 iOS devices sync immediately.

Taking iCloud Notes off my Mac only made the problem worse, because changes and new notes that were on Catalina are now lost.

Fix this please, Apple.

Update: It works now! It's syncing on all devices and working as normal. The first time to sync across platforms took about an hour, so give it time the first few times when you update notes on a device and are waiting for it to show on another device(s).

All I did was exit/quit my notes on all the devices, shut down (not restart) the devices, turned them back on, and then opened up notes. From here I created a new note on each device and called it "New Note From [device]" to see if it would populate on the other devices. It did. Then I typed in each of the bodies using a different device to see if it would sync in the reverse order. For example, a note created from iPhone was titled "New Note From iPhone" was updated in the body of that note from the MacBook. I just wrote "this sentence is written from the MacBook." Then I saw it update on the iPhone and iPad accordingly. This first update took an hour but now new updates are syncing within minutes.

If the shut down and turn on method described above does not work for you then I suggest logging out of your iCloud accounts on all your devices and then proceed with to exit notes, shut down the device, turn it back on, re-log into iCloud, open up notes, let it populate the notes from the cloud, and then test out the syncing with the method aforementioned.

I hope this works for you too. Good luck!

I'm having the same problem - as of today, notes created from my MacBook will immediately appear on my iPhone. Notes created or edited from my iPhone will NOT appear anywhere on my MacBook. This has been a problem, "laggy" like someone else said for about 5 days. I thought it was a glitch as it seems to improve but now that I am back in the office on my computer today, I am seeing this is a very real problem. Have tried all the obvious resolutions - shut down, disconnect WiFi, sign out of iCloud etc..I do think it may be an Apple server problem like mentioned, but not fixed yet. :(

Caitlin, make sure that you are not trying to use "features" from IO13 that are not supported on MacOS (if you are not on Catalina).

If you create a shared folder in iOS13 for example and expect it to sync in MacOS Mojave, it will not. Pretty much for me all issues resolved themselves, without having to log out of iCloud, reboot, restart, etc.

It's not Catalina, because it's happening to me, and I am still on Mojave. Notes on my mac are syncing to my phone, but not the other way. I forced it to sync by shutting down my phone and force quitting notes on my mac and it synced, but does not continue to sync.