Apple Intelligence now features Image Playground, Genmoji, Writing Tools enhancements, seamless support for ChatGPT, and visual intelligence.

Apple Intelligence has also begun language expansion with localized English support for Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K. Learn more >

You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: nataliesophia_
nataliesophia_ Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

Restoring Notes from NoteStore.sqlite

Hi all,


Having read many previous questions and answers to this, I am hoping you can help!

The motherboard of my old MacBook died and the data was extracted to a hard drive. I have restored most of the contents to my new MacBook, running Catalina, but Notes is causing me a real problem.


They were stored on the Mac only, not in the Cloud. I've located "NoteStore.sqlite", "NoteStore.sqlite-shm" and "NoteStore.sqlite-wal" from the hard drive.


I tried

  • copying those files to my desktop and opening "NoteStore.sqlite" with the Notes app but the notes don't appear.
  • opening it with TextEdit and searching for some of the words contained in my notes. I can see that they are in there amongst the code, but it would be pretty much impossible to extract them in this form.
  • making a copy and replacing .sqlite with a .html extension, then opening in Chrome and Safari - but it's just a lot of code as before.
  • backing up all existing notes and replacing the Macbook's current "NoteStore.sqlite" with the backed-up one, but when I open Notes nothing appears.


Can anyone help please?



MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Apr 13, 2021 8:59 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: nataliesophia_
nataliesophia_ Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

Posted on Apr 13, 2021 9:08 AM

OK so *somehow* I just managed to answer my own question!

Posting here for anyone else that needs it.


  • CRUCIALLY, I backed up to the Cloud all of the notes previously stored on my Mac and then turned sync OFF. I also created PDF backups of anything I didn't want to risk losing.
  • As outlined above, I copied over the 3 files (NoteStore.sqlite, NoteStore.sqlite-shm, NoteStore.sqlite-wal) from the backup to my desktop.
  • I located the equivalent 3 files on my Mac (search for one of the files within your user profile and follow the folder route back).
  • At the second attempt I dragged the 3 files from my desktop to the Notes folder and agreed to REPLACE ALL the 3 existing files)
  • When I opened Notes again, it worked.


Now...how to sync them all back together again!

View in context

Similar questions

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: nataliesophia_
nataliesophia_ Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

Apr 13, 2021 9:08 AM in response to nataliesophia_

OK so *somehow* I just managed to answer my own question!

Posting here for anyone else that needs it.


  • CRUCIALLY, I backed up to the Cloud all of the notes previously stored on my Mac and then turned sync OFF. I also created PDF backups of anything I didn't want to risk losing.
  • As outlined above, I copied over the 3 files (NoteStore.sqlite, NoteStore.sqlite-shm, NoteStore.sqlite-wal) from the backup to my desktop.
  • I located the equivalent 3 files on my Mac (search for one of the files within your user profile and follow the folder route back).
  • At the second attempt I dragged the 3 files from my desktop to the Notes folder and agreed to REPLACE ALL the 3 existing files)
  • When I opened Notes again, it worked.


Now...how to sync them all back together again!

Reply

Restoring Notes from NoteStore.sqlite

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up