Notes from my iPhone disappeared post accepting new iCloud Terms and Condition.

I experienced this too on my iPhone 7 the day after I agreed to the updated iCloud terms and conditions (11/5/2024). No notes existed within the Notes app. However, I found that my Notes are tied to my iCloud account so I logged into icloud.com and found them there, yay! Next was to figure out how to get them on my phone. My iCloud account was listed under Settings > Notes > Accounts, but I was afraid to make any changes. So, I contacted Apple Support and we found a solution:

1. Deleted the Notes app
   1. Since my notes data was tied to my iCloud account, it retained it. If your notes are local, it would delete them if you delete the Notes app.
2. Redownloaded the Notes app from the Apple Store
3. Opened the Notes app. No notes were there.
4. Once the Notes app was opened, it prompted me to connect my iCloud account with a pop up that took me to Settings > Notes > Accounts > my iCloud account > iCloud. From there, we toggle the button next to Notes so it was On (aka Green) - screenshot below with the backup option for Notes toggled On
   1. 
5. I may have had to close the Notes app again but I forget. Either way, once we toggled the iCloud backup icon to On for Notes, this allowed for the notes to start downloading to my phone again!

I hope this may help someone too! So sorry folks are going through this.

It happened to me! 6 Nov 2024 on iOS 17.6.1 I accepted new T&Cs. Shocked to see everything gone, empty, zero. I turned my phone off and on again. I opened iCloud in browser on my phone and confirmed my notes were all there, and weren’t fully *gone*. Then they just… started downloading… and now seemingly it’s all fine again.

Hi,

Had this too and found a simple fix….

1) Go to Settings and search for iCloud

2) Select iCloud Apple ID (at the top of the list)

3) Under ‘Apps using iCloud’ select Show All

4) Select Notes

5) Turn off ‘Sync this Phone’ and wait for a few seconds

6) Turn ‘Sync this Phone’ back on

This should kick the notes app back into life to use iCloud again.

Hope this works for you and helps a few others along the way 😊

Brilliant. Thank you for the information. I had the same problem after accepting new T & C’s.

1 - Deleted the Note App (as mine were still in the iCloud).

2 - Re installed the note app.

All ‘lost’ notes reappeared in less than 2 minutes !

Mine also vanished. So I navigated to iCloud settings on my phone. Checked that Notes are turned on for syncing. Toggled the switch to turn it off. It asks if you want to delete Notes from iCloud, and I just chose no. That seemed to somehow push the syncing and my notes are back. 🤷🏻‍♀️

happened to me too and i was like what BUT don’t do anything drastic- just give it 10 mins or longer!! mine all slowly came back onto my notes app. just don’t panic and let them come back :) mine are all back now as normal.

I received the same notification on my iPhone this morning, agreed to terms and all of my notes vanished, although later 16 returned, but none of those were really relevant. Then I went to iCloud in settings and it said to back up which I did, and all of my notes returned. One thing I did after my notes vanished from my phone is take a screen shot of all of them from my iPad. Then around 4 PM I got that same notification from iCloud on my iPad, so again I agreed to their terms, and my notes again vanished. I fooled around a bit on my iPad and finally saw the back up iCloud and so I did that and all of my notes are back. This is probably a very simple process for most younger people, but I am not young…..and when my notes vanished my heart sank as most of my passwords are there!

However all is well now, and I’m happy that I figured out how to get back my notes on my own! 🤗

None of these solutions worked for me. I logged into iCloud and could see all my Notes were there but I could not get them to download to my phone. I confirmed that the Default Account was already set to "On My iPhone" and I restarted my phone several times. Nothing. Then I tried this, which did work! Go to Settings, select Accounts, there were 3 accounts listed but only my Gmail account listed Notes as one of the apps tied to it. I selected my Gmail account, flipped the toggle for Notes to the On position, and all my Notes showed up on my phone. Success!

I had the same issue with iCloud notes disappearing after I accepted the recent iCloud terms and conditions (a few days ago). I am using an iPhone 13, iOS version 16.3.1. I managed to resolve the issue and re-synchronise all my notes by doing the following:

1. Log in to your iCloud account online (icloud.com) to check that your Apple Notes are still there.
2. Turn the Notes option off and on under Settings/[user]/iCloud/Notes/Sync this iPhone; when prompted to "Delete from My iPhone," select Delete. I restarted the handset (though this may not be necessary) and then turned Notes back on.
3. Open Apple Notes, and you should see the notes begin to synchronise automatically.

DO NOT FOLLOW THE STEPS SUGGESTED TO TOGGLE NOTES OFF AND ON IF YOUR ICLOUD IS NOT UPDATED and CURRENTLY BACKED UP!!!!! This will only allow whatever is on your iCloud to pull in and you’ll lose everything else that was local on your phone. The Apple support rep said if you don’t do this and call them, they can likely restore all your notes. Once you’ve done this, you can’t get them back. I hit cancel when the message “Will delete…” came up, but she’s still looking to see if maybe she can restore them. She can’t find anymore notes currently though….. so fingers crossed.

Also, apparently Apple doesn’t monitor this community, so if you don’t report issues to them, they never track the data of people having issues. There may be a ton more out there that the engineers could be tracking and finding out what went wrong if you call

apple and don’t just post here. Something I learned today. 🤪

Super frustrating. Sorry to everyone who experienced the panic :/

After downloading an update on 12/01/2024 I lost all my notes too. This forum was really helpful tho, and I got them all back after the first method I attempted.

I simply went to Settings > Notes > Toggled On the “On My iPhone” switch, then toggled it off.

My linked Notes accounts and emails came back immediately, and I went back to my notes app and they were all starting to sync again already. Thankfully I got all of them back!

I hope this is helpful to others too.

Just got mine fixed with same issue. Restart your iPhone first. Then, go to iCloud, and open your Notes. All your files will be retrieved. :)

Yay notes are back!

IPHONE 11 PRO MAX

Go to settings -> Go to notes -> Click sync this phone -> Should update after that!

Hope this helps somone!

I posted this which worked for me after all other suggestions failed. Hope it works for you.

None of these solutions worked for me. I logged into iCloud and could see all my Notes were there but I could not get them to download to my phone. I confirmed that the Default Account was already set to "On My iPhone" and I restarted my phone several times. Nothing. Then I tried this, which did work! Go to Settings, select Accounts, there were 3 accounts listed but only my Gmail account listed Notes as one of the apps tied to it. I selected my Gmail account, flipped the toggle for Notes to the On position, and all my Notes showed up on my phone. Success!