All the notes on my iPhone disappeared

I was on the phone with apple for about two hours. Here is what worked for me, I also do not recall if I had my notes turned on to save to iCloud or my phone.

we went to general and erased my phone, turned it back on and restored it from a previous backup, I used a back up from Dec 30 as that was the oldest to pick from.

But when the phone is done restoring you’ll need to turn on airplane mode right away, turn setting on in notes to save to phone. Then you may see your notes (I did). I then took photos of all my notes, I heard some copy and paste and create a new note saved to their phone but I wouldn’t even trust that.

while still in airplane mode, if I went to edit one of the notes it would then disappear. When I turned airplane mode off the note showed back up, and then all my notes went away again besides the ones that I did edits to while in airplane mode.

It is strange and I am not sure what is happening, apple also could not tell me what is happening either.

Hope this helps someone.

Trying to restore my moms notes but this didn’t help. Got anything else?

This is genius! Worked for me too. I've recovered almost all of my notes but unfortunately I haven't yet found a way to open locked notes.

Same thing happened to me. All my notes were completely gone. They said 0. We logged onto iCloud and all the notes were there. They’re still not on my phone, but they are on iCloud.

Same problem here, I worked extensively for the last 3 days in the notes app, iCloud storage was full so I upgraded, the notes were not syncing between devices, and now I lost all my work from the last days. What a trash is iCloud service

I went to go type something in an existing note when it suddenly closed the note and took me to the notes home screen. But everything was gone. I can't search up my notes like others can, it's all just gone. When I check my iCloud, it just says 0KB, like there's truly nothing there. I tried things other have replied to do and none of it has worked. I can't even try and use a backup because my last backup was from 5 years ago when I first got this phone (I never re-backed it up because I never had the storage to without needing to delete a lot of things). I also can't used Mail(?) to try and recover Note because I never set up Mail on my phone (I never saw a need to), so the only account attached to my notes is my iCloud account but everything is just gone. 5 years worth of notes just gone and I don't know what to do. I had so much important stuff in my notes and I just don't know what to do. Please help.

Hello annieluh1,

We're glad to hear that updating your iPhone helped recover a few of your missing notes. If you worked through all the guidance in the link provided previously and you still can't find the remainder of your missing notes, you most likely won't be able to recover them.

Thanks!

this just worked for me!!!

Oh my god so it's not just me. This happened to me this morning unfortunately at this point I probably can’t recover them because I tried many ways to fix them so there won’t be a back up for me anymore. 🥺😭

Settings>Apple ID>Notes turn it off and back on don’t get scared when it says delete from my iPhone just click it

where are my notes?

All my notes are completely gone. I logged onto iCloud and most of the notes were there (not all of them some are still missing i think the ones with photos) They’re still not on my phone, but they are on iCloud Idk what to do

user: CPaglia101

Same here and I’m at the brink of crying because the more I check on google how to recover etc, it’s stating it can’t be done.

why would I keep a phone that’s not reliable. I would have backed up my phone but my laptops are not available.

what can we do?

This worked for me!! Thank you! I immediately moved them from "on my iPhone" to my iCloud as well, to hopefully prevent from happening again and for some peace of mind knowing that they are backed up to my iCloud account. I did this while still in airplane mode.

Going back to paper immediately!!

Apple notes for a sales meeting is horrible. I lost everything today.

I’m in our yearly sales meeting today and scanned in the handouts to annotate with key notes to save on my iPad. Everything was going great all day. I’ve taken notes on the scans and key directives from management. ALL DAY!! Then boom. All my annotations disappear in front of my eyes while I’m not touching the iPad. Everything gone! Now I’m the idiot who trusted Apple with my work. So frustrating.