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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

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 22, 2015 6:14 PM

Hi there,


After much research on the internet I have finally found the solution.


Steps are:

  1. Update your device to iOS 9;
  2. Go to notes on your iPhone;
  3. select the folder "On My iPhone";
  4. select edit;
  5. select all;
  6. select move
  7. select "iCloud".
  8. done.


Thank you for reading.


Cory

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.

May 10, 2016 10:59 AM in response to Asaara

This is what you should be seeing:


This is my iCloud Notes view. I click on the left arrow to go to my folders view:

User uploaded file


In my Folders View, I select "On My Phone" notes:

User uploaded file


Notes display, I select Edit:


User uploaded file


Once Edit is selected, I see Move All/Delete All options at the bottom of the screen, and radio buttons next to each note to allow individual selection, if desired:


User uploaded file


If I select specific Notes, the Move All/Delete All change to Move To/Delete:


User uploaded file



Once I select the "Move" option it goes back to the folder view allowing me to select another folder to move the notes to, or to create a new one in either iCloud or on my Phone:


User uploaded file


So, you are running iOS 9.3.1, but have you upgraded your Notes yet? When you go to the New Note option, do you see the option to Add a photo, or to write on the note manually?


Cheers,


GB

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

Jul 27, 2013 9:22 PM in response to ckuttner

Hi Ckuttner,


First you want to make sure new notes are iCloud notes.


To make sure your new notes are being added to iCloud by default on iOS 5 or 6, go to settings on your iPhone or iOS device, then "Notes". Under default account should show iCloud or your iCloud account name / description.


If it does not show iCloud and iCloud is not an option for you to select when you tap on it, then you'll need to go to Settings>iCloud. Ensure you are signed in to your apple ID here. Next ensure that "Notes" is set to ON.


If notes is not on, you will not be able to turn it on unless you have already configured mail. This is as easy as turning iCloud Mail to ON in the same place. If it has already been configured it will turn on when you tap the switch, then you can tap the Notes ON switch. If it hasn't been configured for iCloud mail, you will get a prompt to create an @icloud.com email. This is normal. Create the email, it is the only way to use iCloud for notes (which generally if your icloud notes are accidentally deleted AppleCare can recover them, if its still within 7 days of the accidental deletion, in most cases, so this alone is a good reason to switch to iCloud).


Anyway, once you get Mail and Notes turned on in Settings > iCloud on your device, go back to Settings > Notes and make sure the Default Account now shows iCloud or your iCloud account name / description.


Now that this is done, click your home button (the round button below the screen). Then tap the Notes App. There is a + in the upper right corner of the screen. Tapping this will create a new note. All new notes are automatically saved and added to iCloud instantly!




For those who want to move their notes to iCloud, as others have said the best way to do this is simple copy and paste. (copy from the note that is on the wrong account - like Yahoo, Google, On my iPhone, etc, then create a new note (after ensuring Settings>Notes displays default account as iCloud) and paste. The note will now be in iCloud.


For those who want to see what account specific notes are on, go to the Notes App on your device. Tap "Accounts" in the top left corner. This will show all the accounts that currently have notes stored on them. This way you can figure out what notes are on what account and consolidate them (as described above) if you want.


For those who lost notes, it is best practice is to backup iCloud data regularly (not just an iCloud backup since many data types are not included in the icloud backup, and are instead up dated instantly, which is normally a good thing...unless you accidentally delete something, in which case it will disappear from all your devices/computers signed into iCloud. Examples of iCloud data that behaves like this include: iCloud Calendars, iCloud Contacts, iCloud Reminders, etc. see resources below for more detailed info)

- How to backup your iCloud data - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4910

- Or make an iTunes backup (in a worst case scenario iCloud data can be extracted from these iTunes backups, but the process is long and complex since when you connect to cellular or internet iCloud will overwrite this data by default, but it can be done)


Resources -

- iCloud backup and restore overview (what does iCloud backup?) - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4859

- iCloud: What's in an iCloud Backup? - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2584

- How to backup your iCloud data - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4910

- About iTunes Backups (what does iTunes Backup?), please note if backing up with iTunes, please also Sync and Transfer Purchases in iTunes to create a COMPLETE backup - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946

- iOS: Syncing Notes - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4191


- Recovering iCloud data from an iTunes Backup (difficult, last resort) - http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4108


I hope this helps someone! 🙂

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 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 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.


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How do I get my Notes to iCloud?

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