notes are gone after accepting new icloud terms and conditions

Thank you sooo much!!! I tried A few others suggestions with no luck and was panicking. I have too many important notes (that realistically shouldn’t be on my phone) that I depend on daily. I followed your instructions and they finally came back!

Same here!! I just tried for two hours to fix it. I thought me or one of my little ones accidentally deleted everything until I put two together about the iCloud update! I tried going to iCloud to see if I can put it back onto the phone but there doesn’t seem to be a way! I hope they fix it soon. I need all my notes! It’s one of my most used apps.

I also lost my Notes on my iPhone but not on my iPad after getting this t&c message. The iPhone had several accounts for notes, including iCloud. iPad only had one account for iCloud. So I added the iCloud account again and the notes came back.

Also just got an email about Find My being disabled on my iPhone. Went to the Find My app and turned it back on.

Time to do a backup…

I accepted the terms and conditions for iCloud when they popped up on my screen and today (nov 6)I realized that my notes were deleted. Slowly they started trickling in but stopped, I am missing notes from this year and even some from years before. I contacted apple support and they all said that the things suggested here I should not do since my notes are not backed up by iCloud. I understand that that is my fault for not having enough iCloud storage but at the same time most apple support specialist are acting like it's my fault. I did anticipate that my notes would be deleted due to apples mess up. I am supposed to have a call back but they keep saying that I will probably not get those notes back. I am beyond frustrated.

Hey! I know you’re not replying to me but if your notes are on iCloud.com and not your phone, there should be a way to get them back. People have had various solutions - mine is listed in the forum replies — but to briefly describe, was resolved by deleting the Notes app, reinstalling Notes, open Notes then it took me to Settings > Notes > Accounts > iCloud account and I toggled the iCloud backup option for Notes On. Slowly the notes loaded on my phone!

I hadn’t tried just togging the iCloud backup option off and on for Notes so I wonder if starting there is a better/faster option - just in case you have any local notes saved, since deleting Notes would remove them.

Sending much luck! 🍀 So sorry this happened!

So others have mentioned changing the default account helps, and it did for me with an additional step. If when you look at your default accounts you don’t see iCloud directly listed as an option, just your other emails and/or On My iPhone, then you need to go back a page, and re enter your associated iCloud account. I then unselected on my iPhone as the default, selected iCloud, and re-selected On My iPhone as the default account. After a while my notes loaded again. I did still lose quite a few from the On My iPhone account but the iCloud ones were mostly recovered to my knowledge. Hope you get them restored!

When my Notes disappeared i turned off my phone, waited a few minutes and turned it back on.

I have over 400 ‘notes’ so it too a while for all of them to reload. But that worked for me.

Think of your phone as a mini computer. When a computer goes thru an update it has to be re-started for everything to be updated.

Hope this helps

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.

Thanks, very helpful! Before I came here to see if anyone else was experiencing this issue after accepting new T&Cs, I ended up resolving this the same way except I didn’t even toggle the sync option. As soon as I got to that screen, syncing started on its own. Same for my iPad. Would’ve been nice to have gotten a heads up about this behavior.

Thanks, Adam! I have been struggling with this all morning and finally tripped to your fix. It worked! I’ll expect the same issue when prompted to acknowledge the new terms/conditions on my other two devices😊

I have read and tried the comments here, my notes are back; however missing a massive amount of information. Any suggestions for gaining back my more recent notes. I don’t pay for more storage and it hasn’t been backed up…ever?

Please read all of this to see if it applies to you.

I was in the same position as everyone else but was too nervous to accept delete, or delete the app or any of that.

Instead, I rebooted my phone and waited. Nothing happened.

I opened the notes app and at the bottom of the screen it said SYNCING ICLOUD, or something similar. Then underneath that it said NO INTERNET CONNECTION.

Now, like most of you, at some point I have changed my settings to not sync anything through cellular data. So, I connected to the work WiFi and BINGO... all my 200 notes were back in 30 seconds.

So, make sure you're connected to WiFi, even if you're unaware if you have set any kind of restrictions on cellular data.

Good luck all of you, it just shows you we can't rely on Apple, this isn't the first time they have screwed up royally and won't be the last. iCloud is meant to be an extra layer of security, not an extra layer of risk... and we all know it is.

I see the "easy" solution of "sync this phone" but what if you only have i0S15?? I cannot sync! It's not an option. I see my Notes in iCloud but how to copy/paste from a PC to my dino iPhone7? Please help

The notification came up for me on the 6th of November. The notes suddenly came back after two times disappearing and I knew it had to have been the reason why this happened (along with storage capacity, low power mode and not having the updated iOS’ which I now do so I had to delete data) so I am glad I came across this thread via an internet search. Older notes kept on my previous device pulled up but unfortunately two of my most used notes didn’t sync to the latest version. I used these just before I agreed to the notification. A lot of information is gone. I tried a few things, even called Apple the day it happened and went into the store yesterday. A guy at the store said give it about a week and it could come back to the latest version as it may be stuck in the cloud finding it’s way back to me. I have edited the two notes since but stopped. I hope it doesn’t interfere with the chance of coming back to the latest versions I had. One was dated March 2023 and the other August 2024. Bizzare how this occured when they were regularly saved. He said this occurs to people. But two attendants there didn’t even hear about the notification issue yet and am sure they will in time. Very upsetting and disappointing. I’m not going to hold my breath on it coming back but I can only rebuild on the information I have. I am scared to try deleting the app and tried everything else that I came across. If anyone could please assist that would be greatly appreciated.

The notification came up for me on the 6th of November. The notes suddenly came back after two times disappearing and I knew it had to have been the reason why this happened (along with storage capacity, low power mode and not having the updated iOS’ which I now do so I had to delete data) so I am glad I came across this thread via an internet search. Older notes kept on my previous device pulled up but unfortunately two of my most used notes didn’t sync to the latest version. I used these just before I agreed to the notification. A lot of information is gone. I tried a few things, even called Apple the day it happened and went into the store yesterday. A guy at the store said give it about a week and it could come back to the latest version as it may be stuck in the cloud finding it’s way back to me. I have edited the two notes since but stopped. I hope it doesn’t interfere with the chance of coming back to the latest versions I had. One was dated March 2023 and the other August 2024. Bizzare how this occured when they were regularly saved. He said this occurs to people. But two attendants there didn’t even hear about the notification issue yet and am sure they will in time. Very upsetting and disappointing. I’m not going to hold my breath on it coming back but I can only rebuild on the information I have. I am scared to try deleting the app and tried everything else that I came across. If anyone could please assist that would be greatly appreciated.