Search in the Notes app doesn’t work

I'm active Notes user, and one day out of the blue, I found search in the Notes app doesn’t work anymore. I read about numerous similar cases, some people told they solved it via turning on-off Notes sync with iCloud and reboot between it (it didn't help me), or via turning off Siri and search switches in Notes app settings (it didn't help me as well). Personally for me this issue revealed after I updated my iPhone from 15.x to iOS 16.1 or 16.2, following updates didn't solve the issue. Also I read that people started facing with it back 4 years ago, so it is not a fresh issue, and Apple can't fix it for years. Shame on you Apple, it is so frustrating!

Besides that I noticed that recent years there is consistently decreasing quality of Apple's software, especially iOS and its components (mac OS always was super unreliable and glitchy so nothing new here). Numerous really disturbing issues revealed gradually during the recent years. I am not going to list all of these issues I faced with here, because I don't have enough time, and I don't want to work for free as a QA engineer for you in my personal time.

But this issue was the last straw of my patience.


I was a loyal user of Apple, I'm using iPhone starting iPhone 4 back in 2011, and all these years used your products. But considering what I described above, considering your useless "support", I've decided my next phone will be some Android device, and bought it yesterday. It is not because I love Android and willing to use it, it is because your products became absolutely unpredictable and unreliable even in its basic features like Notes, AirDrop etc.


Bad bye Apple. I wish you eventually lose your share of market with your unreliable and overpriced products.

iPhone XS

Posted on Feb 13, 2023 1:10 AM

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25 replies

Oct 18, 2023 7:43 AM in response to Kee_Reel

I'm a longtime / heavy Notes + iCloud user, and this is starting to drive me insane. As others have commented, in olden times I could drop a word or phrase into the search box inside notes on macOS / iOS and get every relevant result in moments.


Today however, (macOS Sonoma + iOS 17.0.3) search results in Notes are totally unreliable. For instance, I just searched for my manager's name and it returned a few random notes I took during meetings weeks ago, but not the two notes containing my log of our most recent meetings last week - I had to manually scroll through the list searching for them visually.


This is super frustrating, and is making me reconsider my move from Evernote years ago. I really really hope Apple fixes this!

Nov 1, 2023 8:34 AM in response to Mefck9999999

Not sure, but one thing I did before upgrading to 17.1 was I went to Settings/Messages/Siri & Search. I then turned off all 7 buttons. I turned off my iPhone for a few minutes. Turned it back on, went back and turned on all of those 7 buttons. It may have been the fix.


Also, just fyi. I just searched for a word in a photo that is in a note and it found it. I searched for “Duron” and it found a note where I had taken a picture of a paint can. The word was not written anywhere else in the note. It was only in the image.


Hope that helps you.


Nov 20, 2023 5:50 PM in response to Kee_Reel

My Notes app also does not search on my brand new mac studio. I fixed it once (last week) by clearing the caches folder in the hidden libraries directory, but the issue has returned and clearing the caches is not helping.


All of my notes exist on icloud and work perfectly on my phone, macbook and other mac machines. Here is a screenshot of me searching for the letter "A" with no results...


(but I disagree about apple stock, I hope it continues to rise :)

Nov 22, 2023 7:38 AM in response to Kee_Reel

I’ve had tons of issues with Apple in the past 6 months, but this one takes the cake (and is possibly the last straw for me). I am a songwriter and have relied heavily on Notes for 6+ years since I’m constantly on the go.


I just updated to iOS 17, and now, I cannot search through my thousands of notes. This is impacting my ability to efficiently go back to old projects and resume working on them/send them to other artists.


Nobody needed this new AI implementation for searching thru notes. it’s a notes app for Pete’s sake, it should be simple and impossible to break. So disappointed right now.

Search in the Notes app doesn’t work

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