Stickies Database file location on Catalina 10.15

I have discovered, through an all afternoon troubleshooting effort, that Catalina no longer uses the StickieDatabase file in the way it used to, if at all. The stickies are now found as individual files (for each stickie, with long indecirable names) in ~Library/containers/com.apple.Stickies/Data/Library/Stickies. They don't seem to carry the color or perhaps other formatting information, which are presumably in some other file in this general location. I discovered this because my Stickies app wouldn't open after installing Catalina. Hours on a chat troubleshooting with Apple did not fix the problem and they had me send system info to their engineers (who knows what I'll hear back). But they did lead me to this com.apple.Stickie folder which I explored and experimented with by transfering between users. I replaced the folder from that of a new clean user and then placed the individual stickie files - it now launches and I got my stickies back. Wrong colors but OK

The Stickies application that ships with Catalina does not use, or read the previous generation StickiesDatabase digest file. Instead, the Catalina Stickies application automatically saves individual stickies notes in their own serialized *.rtfd package folder with an accompanying TxT.rtf (rich text document) and possibly a tiff image. These are in stored in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Stickies folder hierarchy.

For those that want to live in the past and for a Mojave Stickies application onto Catalina, I suspect that the next Catalina update will detect that transplanted Mojave Stickies application, and replace it with the proper Catalina version.

There are 2 Library folders on the computer. It's possible that you are looking in the wrong place.

You will need the Library folder that is in the Home folder - which by default is invisible. Tricky!

In order to make the Home Library folder visible you need to select the home folder in list view. Then go to the menubar>View>Show View Options. You now have the option to "Show Library Folder". Once you select that box, the Home Library folder will be visible like all the others.

You could also try searching for the file by it's exact name. Even when the Home Library is invisible, it will still take you to the file and even show you the path to it - but Library will be sort of ghosted out to represent that it's an invisible folder.

I upgraded my dad's MacBook to macOS Catalina, and it broke Stickies because "Catalina" Stickies apparently stores notes in a newer format from the old "StickiesDatabase" as outlined in this discussion.

Upgrading macOS Mojave to Catalina did not migrate or import the old StickiesDatabase file data into the newer version of Stickies. It just shows a single, blank notes.

Temporary Workaround: I opened "Time Machine" backup from an external drive and restored the old Mojave Stickies app naming it "Stickies (OLD)" which is still able to open and read the pre-Catalina StickiesDatabase file.

I attempted to use the "Export to Notes" function in the old Stickies app, which prompts you: "Your Stickies will appear in an “Imported Notes” folder in the Notes application. Text formatting, links and pictures will be preserved. Notes will be organized into separate folders based on color."

However none of the data is actually exported. Instead a new note appears in "Notes" which says "Stickies.app" with the Stickies icon.

So I haven't figured out a way to actually migrate data from the old Mojave Stickies app other than exporting and/or copy pasting each sticky note manually… but at least for my dad any anyone else who relied on Stickies pre-Catalina can still access all that data by restoring the old Stickies.app which will open the existing StickiesDatabase file which is preserved in its original location.

Just found this discussion and want to let you all know that I found success migrating my Stickies Database from El Capitan to Catalina 10.15.2 by following your instructions. With one minor variation. The file from El Cap was as follows: StickiesDatabase. In order for Catalina to recognize the file I had to De-Capitalize both the S and the D. Like so: stickiesdtabase. Then it worked just fine.

I was able to copy the Stickies app from Mojave. It's the previous version but it can still run in Catalina. The 2 apps can even run at the same time! You'll have all of your old stickies from the StickiesDatabase file.

I thought that Jayson45's solution was not working for me. But it turned out that my Stickies were there, just not visible. My guess is that this is because they were collapsed (only title bar showing) when I upgraded to Catalina. Using the Stickies app Windows menu to select and then expand the stickies made them visible. (In fact, it may be that they were migrated fine at the original upgrade, and just not visible from the beginning.)

You have the correct answer!

We all opened Stickies initially, only to remember the file wasn't there. But in opening it, it created the new storage structure and that prevented it from running the import process again. Deleting those folders allowed it to import from the old file. Thank you!!

If you find the .rtfd stickies files you can quickly import them back into Stickies. You just need to find the folder that has the .rtfd files and use shift to import all the files at once. You lose the customizations, but you do get the actual files back.

Use File - Import Text ------ and add each Stickies file

If you don't have a saved StickiesDatabase file, you might be able to recover the stickies text files stored on the hard disk. Go into Finder and search for '.rtfd'

I am a long time user of Stickies and have been testing Catalina on an external drive. I discovered that I can copy the Stickies app from a drive running Mojave. It reads my old StickiesDatabase file. What's a bit strange is that both stickies apps are version 10.2 even though they have different creation dates etc. It would be nice if someone at Apple created a migration tool or script to import the old StickiesDatabase file into the new Stickies app for people like me who have more than a hundred sticky notes.

From what I understand, it converted the Dashboard Stickies into Stickies.

I don't know why it can't handle the old database unless they updated the format in Mojave. Is the database file from a Mojave Mac?

Janjop, I copied an old copy of the Stickies app from an old Time Machine backup (probably from Mojave). It is version 10.2 as well. Creation date Feb 22, 2019, 21.3 mb. When I try to open it, it hangs (not responding). Is this the same creation date and version as yours?

I am running Catalina 10.15.1 The native Stickies version is also 10.2, creation date Aug 24, 2019, 1.9 mb. It opens the 2 sample files but not my Stickies database file.

Howard

Unfortunately, this import option doesn't work. It imports the entire old Stickies database file into a single note that is full of gobblydigook.

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