Disappearing iPad note markups

I'm horrified to find this 6-page series of heavy complaints about this issue that has just tumbled upon me! It looks as if I'll have to just accept that my last six hours of work marking up a pdf on my ipad pro have disappeared, when I was already working desperately to a deadline. How can it be that Apple just ignores this? Astonishingly unprofessional of an organisation that appears to want to market itself as a quality provider. Now I know otherwise. I hope a few million more get to realise this before it's too late for them! And I wasn't using "note markups" either, just to refer to those here who have tried to explain that this is another issue.

I have experienced the same frustration of everyone above. Apple, if you’re listening, you need to do something or at least provide fair warning to people in advance that hours of note taking will be lost due to this problem.

Apple support,

I am experiencing the same issue as everyone above. I spent hours marking up a PDF only to have my notes erased. I'm still shocked all my notes are just gone and there is nothing I can do to bring them back. This is why I bought an iPad. I wanted to be able to annotate journal articles. Please resolve this issue!

Gonna chime in here, I've just lost an entire 5 hours worth of annotations on a document and I've got a meeting 2 hours. I'm ready to chuck my brand new M1 iPad into the trash. How can such a basic feature be this broken? There isn't even a save/save as to create any sort of active backup. And to add insult, my iCloud backup was a version from the very start of the say (my internet connection has been spotless the whole time).

And to those saying "use a third party app".

A) Obviously we realize this now, after a costly lesson that never should've happened

B) People expect to use third-party apps for want of more features, not because they expect something as basic as saving the document to be broken.

Exactly, not to mention that from what I’ve been finding online, this issue has been happening for years now. No fix whatsoever just suggestions on what to do that don’t even have anything to do with the problem and just a mindless recommendations like updating the OS or something.

It’s so frustrating when it happens especially because you can’t do anything about it too like go back 10-15 minute to a recovery saved point. I think I will begin exploring android tablets, hopefully they don’t have this same issue because with apple it seems to go nowhere.

The only way I've been able to work around this problem (after losing hours worth of notes) is by using the OneDrive app to store and annotate my documents. I found that the annotations on Apple's mark-up save as a layer. The annotations are still there when they "disappear" but they get pushed to the back of the document, behind the PDF. So you can't see them and there is no way, as far as I know, to bring them back. Please, developers, fix this problem. Annotating articles is why I got this iPad!

For all of those people losing notes, I have not (as of yet) lost any annotations when I use the OneDrive app to annotate my documents. It might be worth a try.

fallleaves wrote:

I have tried quite a few paid apps, and regularly encounter the same exact problem.

Really?

Like which notes apps?

I have a LOT of notes apps at my disposal, and NONE, ZERO have had any issues.

AND most of my notes app backups are either save to Google Drive, BOX and/or DropBox, with,,again, ZERO issues.

I really have never liked Apple iCloud, ever, as it is more of device “data syncing” service and NOT a true “data storage/data backup” service.

Literally, the same problem occurred to me, I have to click "Done" and go back and enter in again frequently to see if my new changes have been saved or not, sometimes works but a lot of the time doesn't and it's really frustrating and a waste of my time.

We get it dude. Your point is made and taken. 3rd party app. But I believe this has been fairly and ultimately responded to. Saving one's work is a basic feature and should be a no-brainer expectation.

So I guess this just happened to me (still in denial phase). Spent two days marking up a 110 page script, took a week off, came back to review, and am finding only 14 of 110 pages of markups there. I do know that the last time I did markups, I probably wasn't connected to wifi. First on the plane, then in a friend's house, etc. This is no excuse to Apple. Saving one's work is kind of the only thing that matters for any tool. There should be versions, backups, a local and cloud copy, all that. We're not talking large files here. Absolutely insane to lose work at this stage of tech. Please, god, help so I don't need to redo two days of work.

I just wanted to add my voice to the list of frustrated students relying on Apple's Apple Pencil to take notes. I use the files app to read and markup pdfs, and for three years now, occasionally, hours' or days' worth of notes disappear with no way to recover them. Usually I will open up the file and find that my previous work wasn't saved, but today I had a page full of just-written notes that disappeared with the flash of a screen WHILE I was writing with the Apple Pencil. I can't believe this is still an issue.

I read this morning that using the Apple Pencil to click on files to open them opens the file as a preview, which is somehow different from opening the file to edit. I have been trying using my finger to open files for this morning's class and Ive already had two wipes TODAY, so that clearly isn't a solution.

The advice I've found on the internet is to use 3rd party apps instead. I want to keep using Apple files but obviously I can't if I want to graduate. Now I have to find a 3rd party app that I like, is comfortable to use and doesn't mine my data, and just hope against hope that my notes are safe with it.

Please, please, please address this issue. I am so very frustrated.

This disappearing notes issue has been a long, LONG-STANDING issue, with also some other long-standing issues, with the free and barebones features Apple Notes app.

I am convinced that this issue is not directly related to editing notes, thr Files app and/or using the Apple Pencil.

This disappearing notes issue can be traced back all the way to around the time of iOS 9 and 10!

There was NO issues with notes randomly disappearing before iOS 9 and 10 arrived and this has remained an issue ever since!

So much so, that I pretty much stopped using the Apple Notes app for ANY important notes keeping soon after I had two or three times where a significant amount of my important notes kept randomly disappearing and when sync'd with iCloud with all of my other iOS devices, those notes disappeared from iCloud and all my other iOS devices, as well.

My wife had run into the same issue,,but does not ever want to pay for apps, so she actually went back to handwriting notes with pen and paper notebooks.

I have been DONE with the free Apple iOS Notes app for nearly 6 years, now and have NEVER gone back to it.

Apple's free Notes app is a basic, barbones app that ONLY gets major changes/rework once a year with every new iOS/iPadOS iteration.

It is not a very good OR very robust notes app and I will just continue to advise everyone here to just STOP using it!

Save yourself the headache and heartache ( when your hard work creating lengthy notes that just randomly disappear without any hope of retrieval of these randomly disappearing notes ).

This is Apple's equivalent of its macOS Text or Simple Text app, which is also free, but has LOTS of limitations. too!

Most third party notes apps get steady and regular app updates to fix found/known bugs.

Most legitimate thrird party apps and note taking apps, in partcular, do NOT “mine” your data.

Most third party notes apps are more robust, more stable and just work better than Apple's free iOS Notes app!

Lots of Apple Pencil compatible third party apps to choose from.

Here is a long, but incomplete list of Apple Pencil compatible notes apps.

Pages

Bear

Collanote ( free )

Documents

EverNote

Inkredible

iAnnotate 4

Good Notes 5

Goodreader 4

Liquid Text

Margin Note 3

Microsoft One note

Nebo

Notability

Notepad+

NoteShelf 2

Notes plus

Notes Writer/(Pro)

Notebook ( free )

PenBook

QuickNotes X/ Pro

uPad

Write pad

Whink notes

Zoom Notes

PDF Expert

PDF Pro

Foxit PDF

Again, an incomplete list. There maybe more Apple Pencil compatible notes apps that I have not compiled.

Good Luck to You and to All Others Here.

This just happened to me, as well (06/22/22) on my 6th Gen iPad mini with iOS 15.5. All of my markups on my PDF file are now gone. I was not using the Notes app, but was marking up a PDF through the Books app.

This is unacceptable, Apple. Note taking is why I and millions of others bought our iPads and Pencils. This requires an immediate fix--not a workaround. Deception? False advertising? I feel completely ripped off by Apple.

I think this may have something to do with it:

I opened the--now blank--PDF file on my MacBook Air using Adobe as I've done many times in the past. When trying to save it, I was only offered the option to "Save As," meaning that Adbe thought this was a brand new document.

However, Adobe did offer to save it using the previous file address. (Odd, I know.) The previous address was: Users/**my name here**/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents/

Well, searching through Finder revealed that the Library folder was gone. And when I clicked through to try and save the now blank PDF, not surprisingly, Finder could not locate the previous location.

Conclusion: Apple completely deleted the folder with the marked-up document in it.

Clearly the student is not talking about the Notes App - good Lord! You know this is an issue as you have a lot of reports of Apple Pencil marks just vanishing when using various apps. This is ONLY reason many folks will buy an iPad and pencil - the ability to take your hefty files with you on the road and do work. Doesn't help if the work evaporates after hours. FIX THIS. I'm another lawyer complaining, but this just seems to be something that you can do better. A LOT better. ARGH!!