I recently upgraded to Catalina and to iOS 13 on all devices. Since then, there appears to a problem with iCloud notes not syncing and/or extremely slow to sync. For me, I have to constantly restart the app on all devices. Sometimes the sync occurs, sometimes not. I’ve signed in and out of the iCloud on all devices. Same issue. Anyone’s else have this problem?
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.
For what it's worth I'm having the same problem under Mojave.
Hi cfroman1,
Welcome to Apple Support Communities. I understand that iCloud Notes aren’t syncing to your Mac or to your iPhone as expected. Restarting the Notes app and signing out, then in to iCloud resolved the issue temporarily. I’m here for you, and would like to share some information that may help.
When signing out, then back in to iCloud, it can take some time for iCloud to sync files depending on the amount of data you’re syncing and your Internet connection speed.
From here, I recommend connecting your devices to another reliable Wi-Fi network, then restarting them to see if the issue persists.
If you’re still having trouble, contact Apple Support for further assistance: Get Support
I hope this information is useful. Kind regards.
Just tested something. The Note I made on Catalina did still not show up in iCloud (web browser). I the used AirDrop to copy my Note from iMac Catalina to iPhone iOs 13 and then a few seconds later, the Note was synced with iCloud (webbrowser).
The problem lies thus with Catalina and not iOs 13...Apple, please update!
Latest addition: when the Note is made new on iOs 13, it does sync rapidly with Catalina. So the point is not the syncing itself, but de Note app on Catalina not starting the sync after making a new Note or changing one.
Update after unticking/ticking iCloud Notes: It's back to being unreliable and not syncing among my iPad, iPhone and Mac. Now, I'm either going to use Pages as my temporary notes app and wait for the next batch of updates or wipe my machines, which I don't want to do.
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.
I’m having the exact same issue, with the exact same conditions.
If I edit or create a note on my Catalina Mac (10.15.2), then it won’t submit it to iCloud, even if I let it sit overnight, until I exit and restart the Notes app; it’s otherwise not made visible in iCloud (web) or the other devices, and even then, it takes a while to update. If I edit or create a note on my iPhones or iPad Pro (iOS 13.3) or Mojave Mac, then it updates everything near-instantly, including the Catalina Mac.
iCloud notes not syncing or extremely slow
