Disappearing iPad note markups

save In files and do your mark ups

It is not really gone you just need to change the highlight color, then the note will come back, it a bug.

I have the same issue, but found out that after doing a Markup on large PDFs, after hitting the Markup button again (to disable) there is a short animation „saving images“. On small PDFs you can’t see this (loads to quick).

I also noticed that my noted disappear more often when I just hinted done after editing. When I disabled markup Frist waited a few seconds and then hit done it disappeared less often.

Another thing is that after closing the PDF (when stored on iCloud Drive) it’s updating the file. Instead of „Modified by Me“ it says some thing like „updating file“. When I open the file while it’s still updating, most of the time my noted disappeared.

It is no work around at all, because first of all it still happens quiet often and second of all this shouldn’t happen in the first place.

This is a really annoying issue ans frustrates me every time.

I am just hopping to be fixed soon from Apple.

I think, we are NOT talking about the Notes App specifically, but about a broader Problem when adding hand-written comments referred to as „notes“ to a range of documents. I suspect, this is an iPad problem, somewhere deep inside. I experienced it - unconsciously for a while - when working on theses of my students in PDF format, I presume with Preview App. Once I re-opened a file which showed my remarks in the thumbnails, but not in the page presentation itself. Of course they where gone after the next „saving“…

Using Notability from now on - GoodReader was good as well, but its gone…

@andyhuish, @selaudin, @DeeEmAB, @tala245, @AquiDonDiego, @rabbleryan, and others,

Again, if you want Apple to take action, please post a bug report to Apple here: Feedback - iPad - Apple. Please direct Apple to this discussion thread since they obviously are not monitoring this.

If enough of us report this en mass on an official bug report, and point out the gravity of the situation; hopefully Apple will pay attention.

In the meantime, if you are willing to shell out the subscription fee, Adobe Acrobat works.

I use Notability app now. The markups look more like handwriting, and they actually keep.

Notability—$8.99/year. I never have this issue. Unfortunately, Apple doesnt care to address this issue currently. So, this is a workaround for the time-being.

Have you updated your iPad to iPadOS 16.1 - and tested to see if this major version update resolves the issue?

Honestly just buy notability… apple doesn't care about this.

i dont think i will use this option again and i will do everything through notability.

Happened to me too, had opened the PDF from Files and had make annotations with a pencil. The next day, files wasnt showing the annotations.

What saved me: I inserted the PDF (insert -> PDF) into a OneNote page, and the annotations were visible there.

Unfortunately, not ALL the notes were where. Some were, some werent. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that you never hit "Close" on any app on an iPad, usually... so at some point it just becomes "minimised" (when you switch to another app), and then the OS frees up memory from minimised apps, maybe some of your notes vanish at that point because there's no explicit "Save" button.

All of my apple products are current on their software update and I’m going through the same issue. It’s gotta be a glitch or an oversight.

However, as of right now, the best solution for me has been to select that particular note that has your marked-up image, and then Send A Copy of it to your Apple device using Airdrop. Everything gets transferred over.

Hope this may help a bit.

Use some other, more full featured and robust, paid, third party app, instead, everybody!

The basic, barebones Apple iOS Notes apps cannot be trusted.

I have been posted this for many years now.

And Apple ONLY ever updates this app once a year with every new iOS/iPadOS iteration and that is it!

Stop using this basic Apple iOS Notes app! Period.

Lots of full feature and very reliable and well-known paid third part notes apps that get regular and routine updates for any issues and work with nary an issue and you can backup the notes in these third party notes apps to Apple iCloud, Google Drive, DropBox, BOX, Amazon Cloud/data storage services.

I have never lost ANY notes using paid third party apps.

N E V E R!

If your notes are that important to you, everyone needs to find third party, paid notes apps that have been around for the past 5-10 years, or so, and start using these.

You will never worry about notes being randomly deleted ever again!

Hi Everyone who has this problem.

Please report this bug to Apple here: Feedback - iPad - Apple. I just did. I also directed Apple to this discussion thread in my bug report; I suggest you do the same. You should also tell them how this personally affected you.

If enough of us report this en mass on an official bug report, and point out the gravity of the situation; hopefully Apple will pay attention.

Dear ivanka242, billandmaryc, emily_david , shachar196 and others like me having this issue, please report the problem to Apple here: Feedback - iPad - Apple

I do not know if any of Apple's product managers monitor this thread (they really should!).

One thing to try:

Open the pdf in preview and go view - highlights and notes. Often they are there, they just don't show up in the main view for whatever reason.

Alternatively, open it in acrobat. Sometimes they just show up... and if not, sometimes fiddling with them in acrobat and re-saving it causes them to return.

For me, the highlights and notes were still in the pdf... just not showing up in preview's main window.