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User profile for user: dingdangdawg
dingdangdawg Author
User level: Level 2
478 points

Notes Immediately Deleted after Restoring iPhone

I have over 300 Notes on my iPhone. Something messed up when using sync on iCloud and they all disappeared after updating to iOS 14.


If I restore my phone from an older backup (iOS 13.x), the Notes reappear under the iCloud folder heading, then immediately disappear. All of them! I think what is happening is that the phone restores the Notes, then restores the settings (which likely includes syncing Notes to iCloud), connects via WiFi to iCloud, and then the Notes are deleted (via a sync problem?). So.....


I turned off my Wi-fi router, then did the same restore version. The Notes reappeared, and remain there, and are all readable as normal. They are under the iCloud folder heading. I can leave Wi-fi turned off on my phone but if I turn it on, the Notes will disappear!


I would like to be able to sync these Notes on my iPhone with iCloud and my Macbooks without losing them on my iPhone. How can I do this? Thanks for any workable solution!!

iPhone SE

Posted on Dec 10, 2020 11:14 AM

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User profile for user: dingdangdawg
dingdangdawg Author
User level: Level 2
478 points

Posted on Dec 10, 2020 2:12 PM

OK, I contacted Apple via Chat, and stumped the tech (though admittedly there was a bit of a language barrier and the problem was complex). So I spent more time solving the problem myself. I believe the root cause was that my older backup had a record of the iCloud messages in the restore file, though there were no Notes if I checked via iCloud on other devices, and no records of deleted Notes. Here is what I had to do:


1) Turn off my Wi-Fi and Cellular so my phone could not connect to iCloud.

2) Restore my old iPhone backup (the one still containing the deleted notes).

3). In Notes, move all of the folders from iCloud to On My iPhone.

4). Connect to Wi-Fi, with Notes set to connect to iCloud. (If I had left the Notes in the iCloud folder, they would have immediately disappeared during this step!)

5) Move all of the "local" folders of Notes to iCloud. All the notes now appeared on the cloud.

6) Restore my newest iPhone backup. iCloud Notes were downloaded to the iPhone, and all is in sync with my other Mac devices.


After reading through many online forums, I'm convinced Apple has some major problems with multi-device iCloud Notes sync. Its still a mystery to me why this happened in the first place, but at least I now have a solution that worked for me.



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User profile for user: dingdangdawg
dingdangdawg Author
User level: Level 2
478 points

Dec 10, 2020 2:12 PM in response to zinacef

OK, I contacted Apple via Chat, and stumped the tech (though admittedly there was a bit of a language barrier and the problem was complex). So I spent more time solving the problem myself. I believe the root cause was that my older backup had a record of the iCloud messages in the restore file, though there were no Notes if I checked via iCloud on other devices, and no records of deleted Notes. Here is what I had to do:


1) Turn off my Wi-Fi and Cellular so my phone could not connect to iCloud.

2) Restore my old iPhone backup (the one still containing the deleted notes).

3). In Notes, move all of the folders from iCloud to On My iPhone.

4). Connect to Wi-Fi, with Notes set to connect to iCloud. (If I had left the Notes in the iCloud folder, they would have immediately disappeared during this step!)

5) Move all of the "local" folders of Notes to iCloud. All the notes now appeared on the cloud.

6) Restore my newest iPhone backup. iCloud Notes were downloaded to the iPhone, and all is in sync with my other Mac devices.


After reading through many online forums, I'm convinced Apple has some major problems with multi-device iCloud Notes sync. Its still a mystery to me why this happened in the first place, but at least I now have a solution that worked for me.



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Notes Immediately Deleted after Restoring iPhone

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