My notes are not syncing between Mac and iPhone

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

Posted on Apr 16, 2023 3:43 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 29, 2024 2:03 PM

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):


  • I removed ALL embedded PDFs. Someone else mentioned they fixed Notes by doing this and sometimes PDF files are large, so I figured go after the big rocks. I found and deleted about 50 PDFs (some 25-50 pages). 
  • I deleted ALL embedded TIFF images. I hardly ever *use* TIFF files anymore, so was surprised to see them - but they tend to be large.
  • I deleted old, obsolete Notes files - brought down my Notes count from 650 to 500. To me, this is a stupid waste of time and I would not even think of doing this if not desperate, but since I was trolling through every Note anyway I figured it couldn’t hurt to cleanup a bit.
  • I deleted the FEW embedded NUMBERS spreadsheets I had - figuring those might be Notes complications worth avoiding.
  • While I left most embedded pictures (PNG, JPG or HEIC), I did remove some pics when there was, say, more than a dozen in one note. For the record, I organize most my pics elsewhere so there were only few hundred pics total across all my Notes but I cleaned out obsolete stuff.
  • I deleted or resolved any Notes ambiguities - i.e., the 1st line of a Note is used for sorting and - I worry - possibly syncing, so it turns out I had a few ambiguities (i.e., Notes with the same Title line) - in one case, a half-dozen with the same name. I figure couldn’t hurt to clean that up.
  • I reduced the number of shared notes (meaning shared with my family members on different Apple ID's) down to the bare minimum (less than 10) - I had about 20 shared Notes files. (My last resort w/b to unshare all.)


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!


  • Benoit


[Edited by Moderator]


86 replies

Oct 17, 2023 2:29 AM in response to GladTidings

none of the avobe methods works, I have a iOS16 device with synced notes, a Monterey and a Movaje device with notes synced OK but the notes in Ventura's device arent working anymore, no matter what I trie, when I enter in iCLoud details notes, it says an error occurred try later, fro days...

This is de Apple's "magic" and this is why I dont use any iCloud/Music/iPhotos/iCloudDrive service beyond Notes and Mail no transparency at all, no way to fix nothing but restart and pray

Oct 17, 2023 2:51 AM in response to guguii

I updated yesterday to Ventura 13.6, and since then they are broken,


Apple Support suggested me to update to Sonoma but I I refuses, as everybody knows MacOS is a nest of bugs the first releases, so I only update new macOS at their half life span as sooner. Too bad experiences in the past.


I dont know why I even keep updating software, old bugs are there new bugs appear...

Oct 28, 2023 11:45 AM in response to GladTidings

I have tried all the suggestions. Rebooted both devices many times. Finally, trying the SAME thing, my notes are miraculously working. There is absolutely nothing I can attribute a solution to. It's a glitch with icloud. I am having similar problems trying to text non-iphone users from my MAC. I was "forced" to update operating systems and I have been having problems ever since. Wasted so much time on these issues. Thanks

Nov 7, 2023 3:23 AM in response to BadgerCanyonMike

it turns out that my mac studio is the only device at home cant access to iCloud.com in a web browser.


I cant in safe mode, Safari, Chrome new user account, Firewall ON/OFF or whatever. It just shows an error, besides this, everything works OK, all webs, lighting fast internet connection and iCloud works OK in all other iDevices and Macs. I can access iCLoud via ShareScreen or Timeviewer with other mac...


I've been told in App Support to reinstall macOS. Yet to do that

Nov 7, 2023 6:27 PM in response to GladTidings

It worked very well to sync notes from iPhone into iCloud.com.cn, but it won't sync in the opposite direction. I had to disable the sync of Notes in settings manually, and then enable it again to sync successfully. I guess it's a bug on the iPhone.

I had an iPhone 14 plus, IOS v16.6. and I don't use macOS.

I set my iPhone to English language, but iCould.com.cn is Chinese.

Dec 30, 2023 1:28 PM in response to mwmom

Thank You mwmom!

Wooo, finally! Works for me -

The downside is you'll lose any updates you've made to Notes on the Mac in the sync process - so backup your work... ouch.


Hey Apple - this problem is bad for folks with long usage that have replaced/upgraded their Macs, or have been forced to do Mac rebuilds to solve hardware issues - in other words, loyal customers. You can do better.

Mar 14, 2024 9:03 AM in response to mwmom

I unchecked it and checked it again in File>accounts>icloud

and...

it deleted all my wife's notes.


Some notes are still on icloud. Others seem to be lost. Hopefully they're cached in notes somewhere...


I think it wasn't syncing because she's still on Catalina and the Notes app can no longer sync with apple because apple changed their servers PERHAPS?


I wish I could get her onto Monterey, but she's afraid it'll slow down after Apple tech advised her not to and she trusts them more than me. Blames me...

Mar 18, 2024 6:50 PM in response to GladTidings

I feel you.


I'll start and say to my knowledge, while applying this to my getting a new iphone 15 plus (running 1OS 17.4 ) and macbook pro 2017 touch bar (running Ventura 13.6), and verifying both devices OS' are up-to-date, at the price points of these devices, Apple's native apps' functions between devices should not have this issue for this many people.


Both of my devices automatically have sync toggled on upon purchase/upgrade. However the syning has ceased eons ago for me with other devs and it's just kept going with these two aforementioned devs I have now and yes, I def gave up trying to address it myself.


I've followed the prompts and instructions found both online here, and will now add YT to the arsenal of research, address this issue myself. I don't know if this keeps Apple competitive and at the forefront of updates to show they care or what, but I cannot lose notes because whoever at Apple refuses to create confirmation pop-up notifications to confirm when native apps+syncing are toggled on or off or that there is a malfunction in the software while not offering a readily available prompt when the system is triggered when a user is attempting to Export or synch devs' native OS apps, like notes.


So hopefully my iphone 15 plus and macbook pro (2017) running on Ventura 13.6 will make it into the "well it worked for me" pile eventually. But until then, I guess me and other 200+ supporters of Apple will have to just keep the pencil and paper companies in business lol




[Edited by Moderator]

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My notes are not syncing between Mac and iPhone

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