Search in the Notes app doesn’t work

I found a fix!

Like many of you, I could not search in notes app. I have version 17.2.1

I tried closing notes app and reopening it with no success

I tried turning my iphone off and back on with no success

Finally I tried turning Airplane mode on and then back off and all the search functionality came back!

I hope it works for all of you! Let me know.

It’s now working for me after iOS 17.1 update. I let it index while plugged in and on Wifi overnight. Less than 12 hours and I can now search all Notes and also Messages search works again too.

Kee_Reel wrote:

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

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Searching for words that are in long notes still doesn’t provide results. Does anyone know what the character limit of a note is before anything after that limit is reached no results will appear?

Just found a fix for this. If you put an inverted comma before the search term it pulls up the full list. ". I guess it is assuming that you are looking for a fixed term with just one inverted comma - so two don't seem to be neccessary - although two also work.

It’s a shame apple doesn’t actually give a **** at all about user experience just adding like 2 new features for each new phone and expect that to satisfy the masses then market the **** out of it gaslighting us into thinking it’s all that when it’s more like all shat.

I don’t know if this is a permanent fix, but as of right now it fixed my problem:

Settings > Notes > siri & search >

I toggled everything off and then back on. Killed the app, reopened it, and as of now search works great again. Partial phrases bring up all the stuff again, and full phrases are finding everything.

I was mostly having problems with full phrases actually, but even partial phrases give more results now.

I had this same recurring issue re notes being unable to search accurately. I tried all of the above solutions with no success. The issue turned out to be insufficient storage space on my iPhone to cache/search accurately. After I provided my device with sufficient available (unused) storage space, the search functionality (not only for notes but also for mail, app search, etc) was restored to full functionality after a restart.

NOTES APP - SEARCH NOT WORKING - SOLVED!

(in my case)

These are the steps I followed (though they may not ALL be necessary)

1. Scroll to Notes app from “Settings”
2. Then on that page under “ALLOW NOTES TO ACCESS” tap on “Siri & search”
3. Under “WHILE SEARCHING” turn on the switch “Show App in Search”
4. The “Show Content in Search” switch option then appears - turn this on
5. Go back a step and tap “Accounts”
6. Under ACCOUNTS choose “iCloud”
7. This takes you to “Apple ID”
8. Choose “iCloud”
9. Under “APPS USING ICLOUD” choose “Show All”
10. Choose “Notes”
11. On my iPhone “Sync this iPhone” was turned on but ”Manage Storage” had a spinning wheel
12. Turn off the switch but STOP THERE and DON’T  tap “Delete from My iPhone” - tap “Cancel” instead
13. Tap “Manage Storage”
14. DO NOT “Delete from iCloud” but go back a step
15. On my iPhone the amount of storage then appeared
16. I stopped there and checked my Notes app and low & behold search was working again

@jjcckk Thank you! quoting is the only way I can get results

not working!!! none of the suggestions mentioned here are working. What now? use another app?

I'm experiencing this bug on Monterey, running off a 2015 macbook pro.

The iPhone notes search is working fine. I rarely update the OS on that which is largely why I think it's safe.

The desktop one... Still doesn't work.

What an utterly sh*te bug.

I searched for a key word in the note header that I knew o had. It never came up. So I hunted down where it was to make sure it was still there. It was. So I backed back out and searched for the tile verbatim. Still didn’t come up in the results. This is happening for me when I search for this note in spotlight, from share sheet within a different app trying to share to notes, AND when searching directly within notes.

BTW this also happens to me when searching for contacts in spotlight or in messages.

Earlier today I found that search within a note in Notes 4.11 on macOS 14.5 (Sonoma) was finding text that didn't match at all what I was looking for. Frustrating. I ended up copying the text of the note to a text editor so I could search.

But now, later the same day, it is working again. I have no idea what went wrong.

Find in Note (in Notes) not working in 17.0.1

Again.