iCloud notes not syncing or extremely slow

I posted this earlier but don't see it, so posting again. I opened a MacBook Pro running Catalina, a MacBook Air running Mojave, an iPad mini running iPadOS 13.2, and an iPhone running iOS 13.2. Any changes made to notes from the newer OS's (iPad, iOS MacOS) are extremely slow to register, taking 20 minutes or longer. Sometimes the problem can be rectified by quitting and restarting, but that's not a great solution and doesn't always work. However, when I make changes to my older MacBook Air running the older MacOS Mojave, I see the changes happening almost instantly (or at most 5-7 seconds) on the other devices running the newer software. So it definitely is an issue w/ the newer operating systems.

And when the going gets tough Apple hides.......this has been an issue now for 2+ weeks. And WHEN (not if) Apple loses it they’ll have only themselves to blame.

My prediction...in less than 10 years somebody else dominates the high end phone/tablet market. The door is certainly ajar.

WAKE UP........APPLE? Never happened under Jobs. Too big to fail? NOT

Dear Customer Support.

iPhone 7 iOS 13.2

I have a MacBook 12" 10.15.1 -- since I downloaded this version I have had issue with syncing Notes between iPhone and Mac

I logged out of my iPhone's iCloud (iOS 13.2 iCloud storage 4.4G of 5GB) and lost all the local data on my iPhone in the Notes App. Then when I logged back in I got a generic error during the process and never finished logging in properly. I had to close the settings window altogether. And now when I open Notes on my iPhone I don't see any of the hundreds of Notes loaded. It is empty! I am a writer and put everything on the iCloud so I won't lose it. Hundreds of notes. All my updates these last few weeks since I updated my Mac are lost... I don't know if they ever made it to iCloud.

Don't log out of iCloud on the iPhone. Or put the data locally on your iPhone. I did not.

There is clearly a sync issue with Notes.

:(

PS. Even when I log into the iCloud web I have lost some Notes completely. Exactly the ones I have written to this last week. :(

I am having the same issue. I really wanted to start using Apple Notes, but neither Bear nor Evernote have this problem, and Bear uses iCloud for synchronization!

This is just some more very poorly-tested software released so that we can do "de-bugging in the field." I've just about had it, and Apple's lack of responsiveness is incredible. I guess they put all their money into a big round building rather than software. It would be great if the next keynote highlighted how they are improving the usability of how their software works for people who work (you know, "Pros") rather than highlighting how you can use it to play games--look it can take the place of a tape measure--we have a compass--look there is a laser cannon sitting on my desk.... Fortunately there are still 3rd parties who know how to code. Microsoft software for the iPad is now more functional than Apple software(I cannot believe I'm writing this. Apple should be ashamed....). They haven't revised the poor unintuitive iWork interface in nearly a decade.

Want more examples? In Apple Notes, why do you hit the "share sheet" button to add lines/grids to a page? This comment section has more logical text entry and attachment icons than Apple's dedicated Notes program or Pages! Rather than creating modern drawing tools for shapes and lines Apple gave us, really, a ****** ruler? Maybe we should also go back to the awful "leather-look" Apple calendar too. The super-rich at Apple clearly aren't hungry any more.

Yep! Tough year for Apple. They've really taken a **** all over all of their products. I mean, notes not Syncing between devices? This is some bush-league bullshit.

My wife and I have had a shared not going on forever for our grocery list. We're back to a pad of paper on the refrigerator. Get it together, Apple.

Same issue, so frustrating because I've come to rely on Apple Notes and the notes syncing between devices, also sharing notes with my wife. I'm running iOS iPadOS 13.2, and macOS 10.15.1. Before iOS 13 and Catalina, Note syncing worked 99.9% of the time for years. Soooo frustrating. Now, sometimes it works fine, then suddenly it stops syncing. Apple PLEASE fix. Thank you.

You're not alone, same thing here. I have signed out of and back in to iCloud on every apple device in the home (two AppleTVs, two iPhones, two iPads, iMac). I have restarted all Apple devices.I have tried restarting all wireless devices in the house (router and modem). I have tried connecting to both "regular" and 5G networks in the house. All to no avail. My Safari updates across devices. Handoff works across all devices. iCloud copy/paste works between all devices. My shared Notes I share with my wife update between our iOS devices. The problem seems to be specifically Catalina on the iMac with Notes and my Photos apps not syncing. I know I just sort of threw in there the Photos App at the end, but it has been a massive headache since upgrading to Catalina as well. The only positive is that the Photos eventually catch up now and sync after doing all the aforementioned steps. But even then I often have to restart the iMac for the Photos to sync across iOS and MacOS. I have zero issues with syncing across any iOS/iPadOS devices (including the AppleTVs). MacOS Catalina seems to be the issue. There's nothing more that this layman can narrow the issue down to.

Hopefully Apple comes out with a fix or an update because it is extremely annoying at this point.

Solution! I spent almost 2 hours on the phone with Apple support yesterday. No joy. Then, I thought about what I would do if this were a third-party app. I recollected that the problem began with a note on my iPad. So, I simply deleted the app from my iPad. I then went to the App Store and downloaded it again. After this, you need to go into iCloud settings and manually connect Notes to iCloud.

Following this, it took awhile for notes to repopulate on my iPad. However, now that this is complete, synchronization is functioning normally again. Hopefully this is not an aberration.

Followed your lead, replaced the apps on my iPhone and iPad, and tested syncing with MacOS on MacBook Pro and iMac, and voila! Everything seems to be instantaneously transferred...love it. Let's hope it continues, but in the meantime, thank you.

Tried the same. Deleted Notes from my iPhone 7 Plus + iPad Pro 10.5. Re-downloaded and switched them back to iCloud.

I completely forgot that we can delete the Apple apps.

It worked! So far, so good.

Many thanks for the post!

As noted above by someone else, try deleting, re-downloading, then reconnect the Notes app to iCloud from iOS/iPadOS devices. Obviously, make sure your notes are safely stored (and storing themselves) in iCloud first before deleting.

Fixed it for me. Been syncing instantly since yesterday.

As noted above by someone else, try deleting, re-downloading, then reconnect the Notes app to iCloud from iOS/iPadOS devices. Obviously, make sure your notes are safely stored (and storing themselves) in iCloud first before deleting.

Fixed it for me. Been syncing instantly since yesterday.

I tried the "fix" deleting notes from iPhone 11 running 13.2.2. But still, when I make changes to NOTES from the newly reloaded and turned off/on iCloud settings, it still takes a few minutes to show up on my several devices. As stated in previous posts, when I make changes to NOTES from my MacBook Air running Mojave, (and also the web version of NOTES) the changes show up within 5 seconds on my MacBook Pro running latest version of Catalina, my iPad running latest iPadOS, and iPhone11. HOWEVER, when I make changes to notes to any of the devices running the newest software, it takes at least Take 2 to 3 minutes at least to show up on all devices. So the "FIX" didn't quite work for me. I guess the other OPTION until Apple fixes this, is to use the Web iCloud.com version of notes as it, like my Mojave running MacBook Air works great and changes made to either of those ways shows up within seconds on all the newer software funning devices. Changes made to NOTES on the newer software running devices, still takes several minutes. Boooo!

I too tried the fix, but after reinstalling Notes and switching iCloud back on it hasn’t synced a single note in the last 2 hrs or so. That’s on a high speed internet connection where everything else is super fast. Who knows if it’ll ever sync the remaining 1000+ notes.

Prior to all this I lost a lot of attachments from Apple notes. I should never have ditched Evernote, but the amount of subscriptions I’m paying for I felt I had to make some cuts. Going to try OneNote. At least it also gives all features for free and If that’s as good as they say I won’t be coming back to Apple Notes for a while.

Ok the 'fix' (turning off iCloud for NOTES, then deleting NOTES App, then re downloading NOTES from App Store and connecting again to iCloud) did speed up syncing of NOTES on my MacPro running latest of Catalina. But the fix didn't help with my iPhone and iPad running latest 13.2.2 ... Still slow to sync when I make changes to NOTES on them.