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

Happened to me too. I didn’t have iCloud storage space synched for over a year either so I was worried.

I went to settings > iCloud > apps using iCloud Show All > Notes > Manage Storage

And it resolved itself. I went back into the notes app and they started loading.

Thank you all so so much.

Finally sorted. Initially only the old notes came back. I turned off my phone and when I put it back on, all the notes from 2021 -now, started to come in.

Thank goodness!

Thanks again to everyone.

Mine came back! I went into Notes settings and changed “default account” from iCloud to “on my phone.” All my notes reloaded. Hope this works for everyone else!

I tried numerous things and in the end deleted the notes app and once reloaded the system prompted me . All my Notes back .. phew !!

I had the same issue and managed to get my notes back. I fixed this by going to settings>notes>default account> then changed to On My iPhone. This redownloaded my notes and kept both iCloud and On My iPhone notes

i just unsynced and synced them again like one comment here said, they’ve been downloading for AGES, i have over a thousand notes so ig it makes sense but i have to keep it open and even when it is open sometimes it just decides to stop loading 😭 augh. they are all visible on icloud website too!

In addition to AdamsiThings answer, a couple more suggestions:

1. Force restart the Notes app (double tap the home button, then swipe up the Notes app, then open it again.)
2. Make sure Low Power mode isn't turned on; this may prevent syncing from occurring when you're not using the app.

Hi sifumanny,

Did you try the following that others have recommended and that worked for me? I have an iPhone XR with current iOS version.

“settings>notes>default account> then changed to On My iPhone”

Definitely complain to Apple!

DO NOT FOLLOW the fixes people have provided here unless you KNOW for sure your notes are backed up on the cloud. I’ve spent lots of time on the phone with Apple recently… and if you do this, there’s NO WAY they can recover them because it resyncs your phone with whatever is most currently in your iCloud.

Also learned that Apple doesn’t monitor these communities and conversations, so if you haven’t reported your issue directly to Apple, they likely are collected all the data needed to prevent this from

happening in the future. It’s important everyone call them and report this so they can see it wasn’t just a couple people this happened too. More than one of them told me “hmmm changing terms and conditions shouldn’t do that though. It shouldn’t delete data…” Well, it DID!!!! To lots of people.

I also learned i didn’t have the option of “on my iPhone” checked… it must not be a default or else some of my notes would have been saved directly to my device instead of pulling from the cloud to sync. :(

dandlsmom wrote:

Me too. I've tried some of the solutions here, but they are just gone. they were supposed to be backed up in the cloud but they are gone from there too. Unbeliveable. so poorly handled by apple

Notes store on your iPhone are backed up to iCloud, but notes synced are not in the backup up file. Not sure if you have updated to iOS 18.1.1, but users have reported that it kick started the sync process and they showed up again on their iPhone after updating.

Are you missing the iCloud notes or the ones stored on your iPhone? It will either say iCloud or On My iPhone on the folder that stores the notes. The notes that are synced in iCloud are viewable here and those are the ones that should be syncing back to your phone.

View notes and locked notes on iCloud.com - Apple Support

Previously users were able to kickstart the syncing by shutting off Notes in the iCloud setting, then restarting and turning it back on, but it sounds like you may have already tried that.

go to settings – notes – default account – on my iPhone, and they will come back

Going to settings, notes, and then choosing “on my iphone” worked. Simple and no phone calls to support necessary Thank you!

Apple, you must do better. Updates should never change default settings.

Yes, this absolutely worked for me. But 1st I had to delete the App from my iphone and then get it again on the App Store. Thanks, brilliant. What a shocker eh!

This is the only thing that worked for me. I went back in and changed the default back to "on icloud" and the notes stayed in the app.