iCloud Slow Syncing

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Level 1

10 points

iCloud Slow Syncing

Hello all:

Wanted to know if anyone else has had trouble syncing their iCloud account (particularly Notes) across multiple devices.

I am a heavy user of the Notes app on my iPhone and iPad, and just recently got a MBP to enhance the usage. But much to my chagrin, I have a nightmarish experience with trying to sync notes across my devices in a timely manner. I have tried,

Updating all devices
Deselecting synchronization across devices
Signing in and out of my iCloud account on all devices
Finally, an what worked to properly update, was to back up my notes (store locally on a device) then delete all notes from iCloud account; then resyncing.
1. however, I don't want to have to do this every time.

I take a lot of pictures in my notes so maybe there is a lot of data to upload then download but I don't find this same problem with the Photos apps.

Any advice would help. It is incredibly disappointing to have bought into the Apple ecosystem because of the exception hardware and OS, only to find that the cloud services are terrible!!! Never have this issue with Windows OneNote.

Any advice on how to improve would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!!!

Posted on Jan 12, 2022 8:34 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

cardofolo Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 19, 2022 4:19 PM in response to mes19

mes19 -

I was having issue with sync on my macBook so I pause sync there.

To pause Google Drive (or OneDrive) sync on macOS:

Find icon on on menu bar
Click icon
Click pause syncing at bottom of menu that pops up.

See picture. Hope that helps!

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Answer 2

cardofolo Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 14, 2022 2:53 AM in response to cardofolo

AnnieL2,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

The biggest culprit seems to be my new MBP. It either takes a very long time to sync or does not at all (either receive data or send). Notes between my iPad and iPhone seem to update just fine; all on same WiFi network. Even iCloud website sees the notes.

Here the answers to your questions:

Are you noticing this with new notes, updates to previously existing notes or both?

both

Does the issue persist regardless of where you make changes or start the note?

That is correct

For example, if the change is made on your Mac, does it reflect right away on your iOS/iPadOS devices?

Changes on MBP do not get reflected right away (or at all)
between iOS and iPadOS, they do.

How about on the iCloud website?

Same situation.
iOS + iPadOS devices update, but macOS does not

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Answer 3

AnnieL2

Community Specialist

Jan 13, 2022 9:12 AM in response to cardofolo

Greetings cardofolo,

We understand you’re noticing that notes are are not syncing across your devices.

Let’s isolate. Are you noticing this with new notes, updates to previously existing notes or both? Does the issue persist regardless of where you make changes or start the note? For example, if the change is made on your Mac, does it reflect right away on your iOS/iPadOS devices? How about on the iCloud website?

Thanks.

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Answer 4

AnnieL2

Community Specialist

Jan 14, 2022 3:43 PM in response to cardofolo

cardofolo,

We appreciate you letting us know what you found out. What you can try next is enabling one of those other services and testing iCloud Notes. Then disabling that one and enabling the other and testing.

That will let you know whether the issue is all three services syncing at one time or if there is an issue with one or the other. That way, if you’d like to keep an additional sync going you have an idea of which might work better over the other.

Thank you.

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Answer 5

mes19

Level 1

12 points

Jan 18, 2022 5:02 PM in response to cardofolo

@cardofolo - where did you pause the sync of your google drive? on computer or phone? can you tell me how you did that? i'm having the same issue with notes not syncing on my MBP (but it's not a new machine and this is a fairly new problem)

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Answer 6

cardofolo Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 14, 2022 4:45 AM in response to cardofolo

UPDATE!!!

So I think I finally solved the problem. I have both Google Drive and OneDrive applications running in the background syncing files. I paused both and Notes updated immediately.

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