My notes are not syncing between Mac and iphone - I have tried every suggestion for every article I could find - checked all setteings dozens of times -
HELP!???
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iPhone 7, iOS 15
I finally solved this frustrating Notes syncing problem.
For the last few years Apple Notes across my device (MAC, iPhone, iPad) would not sync correctly. I had over 650 Notes, and many of them had attachments, e.g., pictures, links to subdirectories, and PDFs. And I was sharing some notes. The problems I experienced included some Notes not syncing; always a different number of notes on different devices (a difference of 30+ notes across synced devices); occasionally Notes updates would not replicate across devices (VERY bad). And I tried ALL the Apple recommended approaches and various online suggestions, including deleting ALL Notes on a device then re-syncing from Apple Cloud to refresh the sync. But despite many attempts, I just could not get my Notes to correctly replicate across my devices nor stay synced afterwards. It was a big mess and causing me a lot of grief.
Here’s how I solved my problems - which required investing over 6 hours meticulously reviewing the contents of *every single Note*. Prior to performing the activities below I deleted all Notes from my iPhone and iPad and then worked on the Notes on my MAC (I wanted to force the Notes on Cloud to sync with the changes below):
All considered, my effort was focused on 1) reducing raw space, 2) removing complexity, 3) eliminating ambiguities. And it worked. What a relief!
Suggestion for Apple Notes developers (if listening): Please add a “Sort by Size” option under Notes/View menu - if I’d have had this, I surely would simply have sorted by size and focused on the problem children first. My guess is that I could have solved my problems in a few minutes (rather than hours).
Good luck Notes users - I hope this helps!
[Edited by Moderator]
I figured it out. For me, it wasn't a sign in I needed. I went to the notes sync option. It was already showing sync enabled. However, the notes actually were not syncing. I had to turn off note sync then turn it back on. That worked.
Solved for me
My iPad wasn’t syncing Notes. So I turned it off in iCloud and then back on. Didn’t help and of course deleted Notes from my iPad. Would not re-sync.
Here’s what brought it back:
THIS ALSO WORKED FOR ME!
I've been trying for AGES! My notes were syncing between my iPad and my iPhone 11, but at some point they stopped syncing with my Macbook.
Going into Notes > Notes > Accounts > Add Account > iCloud worked!
This worked for me. On your computer (Mac Sonoma for sure)
System Settings -> iCloud -> under "Apps using iCloud" click Show More Apps... -> click on the Notes app -> toggle Off "Sync this Mac" and then toggle On again.
Check if notes are auto synching now. This worked for me!
Had similar issue and noticed that the problem was my icloud. If the icloud storage is full it won't sync. It worked as soon as I made some storage available.
temporarily creating another user on my Mac and signing in with iCloud seems to have fixed the issue. when i opened Reminders and Notes it ran through its setup and then everything started working. i logged back into my admin account, and then that started syncing.
Thanks for this solution. Opened Notes on my computer, went to to Accounts>icloud and turned "sync" notes off, then on again. Then I could see all my missing notes from my iPhone 12.
Thanks Leah,
I moved notes from the folder "On My iPhone" to the folder "iCloud" and immediately my notes synced to the MacBook
I also lost my notes on my iphone but in icloud all is there. What I did was I went to settings and then Notes selected account which is Icloud and then toggled off Notes then rebooted my iphone. When it turned on I went back to the same path and then toggled it on and then relaunch Notes on my iphone and voila my icloud notes are loaded back.
Hope it helps.
Followed all the instructions above but to no effect. What I ended up doing was closing the Notes app on the Mac and then reopening it. Then it synced up with the iCloud where the changes and updates made via the iPhone were available.
It would be nice to have an icon which does a refresh to the iCloud. Just my two cents.
I have another solution for anyone having this issue in 2024/2025. This what worked for me, at first it wasn't so obvious, but it worked.
Open the Notes app on your phone > Theirs Two folders One at the top is named "iCloud" thats where you want all your notes written or forwarded from your "On my phone" if you want them sync with all your devices.
Then you have the next folder "On my iPhone" which is exactly what it says, all notes written on there are saved on your phone only.
Your notes on your Mac (desktop/Laptop) device can be configured as you wish by opening the Notes app and clicking > Note at the top of menu then clicking > Settings.
Anyone having these problems? I fixed it. Basically I copied and pasted all my text notes and then permanently deleted all notes data from iCloud …. it deleted absolutely everything! Then i turned notes off and on and oilá, everything synced!
Which device has more notes than the other? Today I discovered several New Notes on my phone ( v10) would not sync to my Mac 12.6.7. Once I deleted the New Notes on my phone, the number of notes on each device was the same. If this doesn't help to sync. come back here with more information about which device has more notes. I also found I had to stop using all tags and subfolders. Some devices can create these but other devices cannot see them.
this worked for me:
go to settings, iCloud, Apps using iCloud, Show All, scroll down to Notes, select then turn on Sync this iPhone
I hope this works for you
Following the steps of signing out and signing back in fixed my issues as well it seems like there is some kind of caching issue with Apple notes that needs to be fixed.
My notes are not syncing between Mac and iPhone
