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How do I get my Notes to iCloud?

How do I sync my old Notes to iCloud?


I can only sync new Notes under my iCloud account but i have tons of old Notes. How do I get them over to iCloud?


Thanks in advance for any advise.

Posted on Oct 14, 2011 2:08 AM

Reply
66 replies

Oct 28, 2011 7:58 AM in response to digitalkl

Go into mail under reminders you will see notes. Expand notes so you can see "On My Mac" and "iCloud" and any other folders you may have. Choose the folder that has the notes that you want to move. Then pick the notes themselves, this can be done individually or you can select more than one. Once you have all the ones you want to move Right-click or choose Message from the menu bar at the top and select Move To -> Notes -> iCloud. Now all you notes will move move to the iCloud folder and within seconds they will change on all your devives sync'd in the cloud.

Nov 8, 2011 5:39 PM in response to digitalkl

I found a good way to do this (on a Mac, I don't know about Windows):


1) First you'll need to sync your iPhone/iPad with iTunes. Make sure you've checked the box to "Sync Notes" under "Other" on the "Info" panel of you device. Also, make sure to uncheck the box for "Replace information on this phone" in the "Advanced" pane and resolve any conflicts properly.


2) Once your notes are identical on your computer and your iPhone/iPad, open up Mail.app on your COMPUTER and scroll down your accounts tab on the left (panel may be hidden by default) until you find the "Reminders" section. You should have a "Notes" section that has several accounts. Mine had notes from a Gmail acct, "On My Mac", and "iCloud".


3) Merge all the notes from the "On My Mac" acct and any others you need by selecting them all and dragging them to the "iCloud" acct. Once you're sure they're there, check back on your device that all your notes are now populating in the "iCloud" acct. (this may take 30 secs or so.)


4) Optional: I then deleted the gmail notes folder and the "On My Mac" folder to make sure any new notes would be created in the iCloud acct. I don't know if this will work or not.


5) Fianally, I deleted all the notes from the other accounts on my iPhone. I had to do this one at a time, which sucked, but someone my find a faster way. All I know is it works.


That's it. I've got all my notes in iCloud now and no stray ones that don't sync. Hope it helps!

Nov 28, 2011 7:32 AM in response to IllRepute

Good solution. A few other tips:

  • First you must be sure you have enabled Mail in your icloud account (you need a .me address and notes are stored along with email)
  • For step 2 I needed to add the icloud account to Mail under preferences (need not sync mail if you are only syncing notes). I moved the notes within Mail.
  • Once all notes are the same (instead of step 5) you can uncheck "Sync notes" in itunes - it will offer to delete all notes on your iphone (since they are the same as on icloud it is ok), and they Sync.

Nov 28, 2011 2:30 PM in response to jefw

I just want to say thank you very much. The information in this thread helped me sync:


1) notes on my iphone 4S

2) notes on my ipad

and

3) notes in my Apple Mail


I'd been looking for this information without finding it in one place simply stated. The part I couldn't get on my own was that you must set up an iCloud account in Apple Mail even if you don't plan to use your name@me.com email address to do this.


Thank you so much for taking the time to share what you know.


Deena

Nov 28, 2011 9:11 PM in response to jefw

Well...this sounds really useful, but I'm having trouble setting up my me.com email account in Mail. I know I'm entering my correct email.com address and correct password, but Mail says it's not able to connect.


I have my other email accounts coming to Mail. So I'm doing something wrong.


When I go to the more manual setup, I try it as both iMap and MobileMe, neither of which works. I don't think me.com is supposed to be POP, is it?

Dec 6, 2011 5:17 PM in response to deenafromweston

I agree with Deena, it was sure nice to find this thread. I too was not understanding that you must enable the @me.com email account in iCloud on the iOS device AND create that account in Apple Mail on the Mac if you want to sync Notes. It's a shame b/c I already have 5 other email addresses I'm managing, including one (non-apple) address that I use for my Apple ID and iCloud; they're all working fine sync'ing between my MBP and my iPhone, and I have no need/desire to use the @me.com email for anything else, but now I need to use it solely for sync'ing Notes. Hopefully Apple will provide more flexibility in the future. Oh, and wouldn't it be nice if there was a standalone Notes app for Mac OS X that could sync with the iOS version via iCloud without going through Mail? I don't understand why this isn't the case.

Dec 6, 2011 8:42 PM in response to ckuttner

Oh, silly me! I read up further and it seems that the reason I can't sign up my me.com account in Mail is because I am an unworthy person who uses OS X 10.6.8 instead of using Lion.


I'm just not ready to mess up my Mac yet, particularly since I want to finish off my donations for the year through Quicken before breaking it with Lion.


I can think of no reason that Snow Leopard users shouldn't be able to do this sign-up, other than the fact that Apple is acting a bit like <shudder> that big company that's named for Bill Gates' genitalia.



Dec 7, 2011 2:01 PM in response to ckuttner

Yeah, the only reason I went to Lion was for iCloud. Aside from iCloud being pretty great so far, all other aspects of Lion have been a pain in the ***. If they added iCloud to Snow Lwopard, I'd switch back in a heartbeat.


***Edit: Nice to see that Apple has decided I cannot refer to their OS as a pain and is now moderating my profainty. This is getting absurd.


< Edited By Host >

Dec 7, 2011 6:39 PM in response to ckuttner

Yes, you can use your me.com (iCloud) account in Apple Mail in Snowleopard. And when you get it set up, your notes will sync between your Mac and your iOS 5 devices. You will still have to move your old notes around as explained above, but the whole thing works just fine. Here is how you set it up.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3394767?start=0&tstart=0

How do I get my Notes to iCloud?

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