Disappearing iPad note markups

There is no way to explain the frustration caused by this issue. I too fell victim to this seemingly harmless issue. But dont be fooled, it is the worst. I spent three hours reading and annotating a document a inserted into onenote. Then all of a sudden my window goes off to the side of the screen as I accidentally clicked the multitask function and my file closes deleting all of my notes. I am shocked to find out there is no method for recovery and that apple hasn’t thought to include a temporary storage/backup of markup annotations. An extremely distasteful experience revealing a lack of foresight from apple, I am highly disappointed to say the least.

Apple, please fix this

I have found it very practical to just print out documents in onenote. I really liked the markup function but its just not reliable. Anything could trigger it to close and delete your notes if you don’t save often which is a hassle. Onenote uploads almost immediately so I have found it to be the best.

Apple fanboy here, been using notes for pdf mark ups for years, have only had this problem for maybe the last two years. I go to site and spend hours marking up PDF's for manufacturing purposes, when I inevitably loose my mark ups it costs hours of labour! soo frustrating. I tried changing to one note, it didn't suit my needs and came back to notes. I found I would loose the mark ups when I would open a different PDF in the same note for reference or the likes, and when I came back to the marked up PDF, the mark ups would be gone. I have been combating this by doing a SMC reset before doing any mark ups, this has been working, however... today i'm back in the office, completed my mark ups a few days ago, opened for exporting for manufacture, opened another PDF, came back and the mark ups were gone! Can't go back to site, can't send mark ups for manufacture, lost my manufacture window! I have to go back to paper.... sorry for the essay, this one is going to hurt.

5th gen ipad pro, and pro's before this one, always up to date. Apple.... i'm ******...

This missing markups started for me when I "upgraded" to iOS 15 and Mac OS 12. The only reason I did was for the Universal control feature, but that doesn't even work half the time! I take pictures on site and markup with measurements for my welding business, now I need to go back on site to get these measurements again>. Super Frustrating!

The latest was the thumbnail in notes on my Mac had the markup, but the actual note didn't. It was still on my iPad and iPhone until today. Nothing on iCloud either.

There is no reason we should have to buy a third party solution for an advertised feature. It's getting harder and harder to stay with Apple as of late.

I AM SO FRUSTRATED WITH ALL MY MARKUP NOTES VANISHING!!!

I have a habit of reading E-books in iPad and take notes with my Apple Pencil in the pdf itself, which is opened in the files app. Apple please fix this bug! This is such a basic use case for iPad. This is not why I bought the device…

I don’t know if this will help anyone, but I now import any pdf docs I want to mark up into the GoodNotes app. I realise this means having to buy another app when Apple should sort the problem out, but GoodNotes gives me the flexibility to import and markup pdf’s, add extra pages for notes and is generally a first class app for making notebooks for different subject areas. I used it extensively when studying at uni, and so far (touch wood) all my notebooks and marked up docs are intact. It was a game changer for me and the £6 ish purchase price for unlimited notebooks (you can try it free with up to 3 notebooks), is a no brainier when it comes to your sanity.

Have had this problem numerous times, eventually got frustrated so much I found somewhat a solution.

If you use GoodNotes or Notability (maybe possible in other apps), you can import your pdf and make notes on it as you'd normally do on paper.

This option has an additional benefit: since extensive drawings make pdfs size considerably larger, you can safely store them in apps cloud, and delete from files.

Same problem, I’ve experienced it quite a few times now. I think that apple should immediately fix this as its a huge problem that lowers the productivity of people and have them waste their time and effort. I’ve also found that when splitting screens (i usually split screens with two file opened at once) it is more likely for the markups to be gone. Be careful when splitting screens while doing markups.

Just happened to me too, in a course I'm taking for my profession. Lost all my notes for the entire day, including notes on conversations that happened in class. If you cannot fix the random markup deletion issue, can you AT LEAST REMOVE THE MARKUP OPTION????? This has happened to THOUSANDS of people. Jeezus.

[Edited by Moderator]

Just lost an entire econometric model I was developing with students to prove we could do it by hand. Well apparently we CAN’T do it by hand and it’s not because we can’t do the maths..

what a shame. You know what they say, a happy customer will tell maybe 2-3 of his close friends and an unhappy customer will have a lot more reach.

and the only reply from “apple” does not even respond to the right problem!! WOW”

thanks for nothing apple.

Took a class and wasn’t able to print out the notes. Figured I would finally use my Apple Pencil and the markup tool on the PDF saved to iCloud. Today was the last day and touched the mark up button and it wiped all of my notes. Will never use the iPad or Apple Pencil again.

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!

Ohhhhh MichelPM so you are telling me Apple provides us with a feature that is not working and your answer is : go to a third party app?

Yes of course it is what we are doing, but why provide the system with a feature if it can’t be used ?

we post here to say we’re either using another app or not using the ipad at all. The truth is the interface of the file app is really convenient, but it should absolutely not have a feature to write on a pdf if it can’t save whats written. Period.

Btw : cheaper samsung tablets have the feature and do not magically erase ur notes (and have third party apps too) I’ll definitely recommend these tablets over one that have had a non working feature for years with an answer to the post from apple worker that doesn't even respond to the post problem.

I guess you’ll find a way to say there is no problem and it could be solved by buying another app..

imagine buying a car with a speedometer and it always says 120mph even though you are stopped. And then a lvl 9 guy on a forum tells you “ simple, buy a speedometer from amazon and scutch tape it to your car” …”PERIOD”

maybe it’s frustrating to be told to do such a thing when paying a much greater price than other companies tablets for the os and working capacity of the tablet. Imagine having a product with the same components than another company, but one of the advantage you push forward is having a fully functioning tablet due to the fact that apple provides the apps to do everything you should want to do with it. But that can’t even be done.

And even worst, imagine buying this tablet not knowing the file app erases hand writing and having your work erased. The only solution provided in years is : buy something not apple made because in years, they didnt solve it. Nice

Done. If Apple literally fixes this one issue, I will be able to replace 30% of my aging MacBook fleet with iPad Pro 12.9” and Magic Keyboards. We have a growing use case for this setup that is mostly on hold while this bug is worked out. 

I have this issue too , it constantly happens If I unintentionally swipe left or right to switch document.

apple should really add an option to have a pop up in such case that warns that the document is unsaved with a save\don't save\cancel option .. or something of this nature .. like any other software in the market dealing with documents have ..