Search in the Notes app doesn’t work

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.

I'm on Sonoma 14.1.1 and iOS 17.1.1 and experiencing the same unreliable search results on both. I'll type in a word and it will just return some results that has the word in it, but not all.

A "workaround" I found is search results seem to work how I expect using notes via icloud.com.

But hope they fix Sonoma and iOS soon, I just finished moving everything from Evernote as I wanted something simpler and more reliable :(

Well…

after each and every build an iOS 17, none of which functioned on iPhone

(but worked perfectly on the computer and iPad)

Well???

*UPDATE*

Now on IOS 18

AND???

ALL FIXED!!!

search function in Notes and Search for Apps…

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.

None of the suggested fixes worked for me (iPhone 14 Pro Max, iOS 17.5.1).

When I search for a single Notes word in the Folders Screen, I get one hit (there should be multiple). When I search within a Note (using the 3 dots, then Find in Note), the text box only allows me to type 3 letters, then it freezes - cannot delete the 3 letters, and Done doesn't respond - all I can do is close the App.

The issue resolves briefly when I restart my phone - then it returns.

Contacted Apple, who were totally useless. Their suggestion was to delete the App and re-install it, which I did. The bug remains.

Absolutely infuriating!

I use Notes for my blog recipes, and I used to be able to search and find all recipes with the word 'loaf', for example. Now I can only do it when I use Notes on my Mac, and then only with Command + F, as the search box is useless.

Any other suggestions for me to try would be very much appreciated.

I wanted to share my experience fixing this issue as I was starting to really get worried I was permanently hosed.

Out of many Mac devices, only my M1 Air was affected.

It was running Ventura 13.x

Notes search was fine, until one day it was not.

And no other Apple devices were impacted.

I tried all the usual tricks like disable Cloud notes, restart, re-enable. I didn't try signing out of iCloud.

Anyway, nothing worked.

So I did this:

Disabled iCloud notes.

Restarted.

Upgraded OS to Sonoma 14.5

re-enabled cloud Notes.

Still not working. (here comes the trick)

Hit Apple-Spacebar to pull up Spotlight search.

Search for a Note and if you see it appear in the Spotlight search results select it.

It brings up the Notes app.

Go to top of notes app tree (e.g. All iCloud)

Try search again from within the app.

Now it should be working. (hurray!)

This worked for me.

I will report back here if I lose the Search again, but for now am happy.

The quotes worked for me too! Thanks...seems like a stupid move but I'll take it for now. The Notes App is my other brain!

Please check your email accounts that store all your notes. They are synced to Google, iCloud, AOL, Exchange, Outlook, Yahoo or any other etc.

Where were the Notes that you lost? See the pic below. You will get your answer.

I remember all you needed to do is type one word, and you could get every note that had that word in it. You can no longer do that. You could even get any PDFs or PNG‘s that refer to that word. It doesn’t work like that anymore. It has downgraded horrifically..

Feel the same exact way.

Spent hours trying calendar apps because not only is the default calendar not particularly helpful but I’ve run into issues. Now, you can’t mark whether you’re “busy” in an event and and my meetings are overbooking. I change the notification settings so I don’t receive so many and the settings default back on their own.

My search has also stopped working I. notes the last year. So I’ve had to use Evernote. Then, this morning I wasn’t able to create an app specific password on the site, I had to use Google Chrome because there is a glitch with Safari.

I pay too much to have to cobble together OTHER apps because Apple’s default programs (that I need for my business) are mediocre on a good day. Or create days/months long issues on the worst. Part of me wonders if this is purposeful, to encourage more App Store sales.

Either way hired a consultant last month to help me think through workflow and transitioning completely from Apple because this is not worth it.

I'm just adding my experience to the thread. I am also an avid Notes user and have questioned the search before but today is significantly noticeable that the search feature is busted. I am on 16.6.1. On my iPhone, the search is being finicky but my Mac seems to be okay. I am also usually searching for the "subject" word. If I search on my phone, it won't come up, but when I go to Mac it does and when I try one phone again, it will appear. I also tested it so much that I could see a result on the folder I was in and decided to search for it to see if it would come up, knowing that it was there, and the search still provided zero results. It is very frustrating when I have numerous notes in one folder to dig through.

i noticed notes completely lost it's search function after the ios 17 upgrade.. doesn't even work on desktop macos sonoma.. even after refreshing the icloud connectivity with notes.. this is not good, heavy user of notes! Is this a bug??

I had the same thing with macOS Sonoma.

The solution mentioned in this thread worked for me:

• System Settings > Siri & Spotlight
• Turn off a bunch of checkboxes, I turned them all off other than Applications, which is the only category I want Spotlight search for anyway
• Close Notes
• Open Notes

Then search-across-notes started working again.

"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. "

Did not work on IOS 17.5.1

I made a shortcut to Icloud as each update to IOS 17 has not addressed this issue.

NB The search function for apps also has disappeared with the Notes, been many months for me now.