Photos in Notes not loading, showing, or opening (iPhone, Mac, and iCloud)

Question

Level 1

10 points

Photos in Notes not loading, showing, or opening (iPhone, Mac, and iCloud)

For years I have used the Notes app to store photos with a password as it was the only way to do it without a third party app.

I recently got an iPhone 14 Pro.

When I unlocked my notes, most of the photos had been replaced with blank thumbnails. The same happened when I looked at notes on my Mac or iCloud. Most of the photos were just blank thumbnails!

I have updated my Mac and iPhone, restarted, unsynced and resynced notes with iCloud... No change!

Weirdly, when I *long press* on some of the photos in iPhone, the thumbnails show the actual photo, but this is only the case for about a third of the photos. On Mac and iCloud, double clicking the thumbnails does nothing.

Please help!

iPhone 14 Pro

Posted on Jan 28, 2023 8:42 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

destiny241

Community Specialist

Jan 30, 2023 12:18 PM in response to shepherd9

Hello shepherd9,

It sounds like you've stored photos in the Notes app, but after getting your new iPhone these photos are missing. If this is happening on your iPhone, Mac, and using the iCloud website, then we'd recommend to contact Apple Support directly. Here's how you could do that: Contact Apple Support

They'll need to take it from here.

Wishing you well, take care.

Reply

Answer 2

shepherd9 Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 30, 2023 12:35 PM in response to destiny241

Hi Destiny421,

I ended up calling Apple Support. They indicated that the photos likely haven’t been deleted but that when things transitioned to iOS 16 there may have been a bug that resulted in the photos from locked notes being unreadable. Apparently this may be an issue for multiple users. They took my report and said to check when the next few iOS updates happen as hopefully there will be a patch. I will update this thread if it ends up being fixed. Thanks!

Reply