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Syncing notes

Notes do not sync in iCloud from my iPad to my iPhone

iPhone 4, iOS 5

Posted on Oct 16, 2011 2:43 PM

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12 replies

Mar 14, 2017 6:29 PM in response to billfromlansdowne

In a moment, a random moment, I "stumbled" across the answer. I had been searching these blogs, and forums. It isn't spelled out clearly, so here goes: (I will copy this to other questions also)...


  1. When you "add" iCloud to a device, go under Notes, and you should see "Account" in upper left corner.
  2. Your "old" notes, (before iCloud) will show when you select "My PC", which is the equivalent of your iTunes syncing history on your PC.
  3. If you select the account of "iCloud", then you'll initially see "no notes" (unless you've been entering them there already). So these two sets of notes are separate - they're either under "MyPC" or "iCloud".
  4. TO GET OLD NOTES to iCloud: (1) Go to your 'MyPC' notes. (2) Select a Note. (3) Select the 'share' link, and choose "Copy". (4) Go to your 'iCloud' notes; (5) Select "+" to create a new Note. (6) Now, "paste" (hold finger down, then select "paste" after lifting it); You should now have that "copied" note from your "MyPC" Notes in your iCloud Notes, and it syncs to iCloud account really quickly.
  5. REPEAT #4 Ad Infinitum.


There you have it.


The trick here, is the "Notes" application distinguished between accounts, within your device, and you can have many obviously. Good or bad, that's the key, and before iCloud existed, the "account" was "MyPC" (/iTunes). The thing with Apple that's funny, is sometimes they make "lots of assumptions" like with iTunes - I used to get tons of stuff synched with my pc, that i didn't realilze i was asking for. Then other times, they make no assumptions, and make you manually configure everything. I think they're moving towards the latter, increasingly, which is good, but users aren't used to it!


Cheers.


P.S. That solution took 4+ hours of reading blogs, trying different things to find. I just sort of randomly noticed the "account" label in the Notes app, and figured it out from there.

Oct 20, 2011 1:09 AM in response to billfromlansdowne

I fell your pain and no thereis no good solution to this nasty issue. However you can view your Outlooknotes on your iOS devices but I had to do a sync via PC iTunes and sync cable to each device (iPhone 4 and iPad 2) not a very good solution (no support for OTA iCloud sync, LAME!). Then when the Outlook notes arrive on my iOS device in the Notes app its under a separatefolder "From My PC". All notes generated on your iOS devices are in the folder xxx@me.com or iCloud folder. Further more if you go to your iCloud webpage you will only see the notes you generated from your iOS devices (if youhave Notes sync turned on) and you can't edit them nor can you create new notes from the iCloud webpage interface! Extremely sad and downright terrible migration from Mobile Me. These are simple text notes this should not be so difficult but Apple chose to treat them the same as email messages basically and made a flashy "Notes App" just like the new iOS 5 "RemindersApp" same thing.


If you’re like me and your looking to go away from your Outlook Notes and just want to put all notes into the Apple Notes then you need to use one of your iOS devices and manually cut and past the notes one at a time from your "From My PC" folder then create a new one on in your iCloud folder. This is also so darn ********! You should be able to select all do a copy then go to the iCloud folder and past,done (but you can't)! With hundreds of Notes collected over the years you’re not likely going to manually open each one select all, copy close and create a new note in the iCloud folder.... and by the way I'm not looking to load Evernot at this time so stop suggesting exporting my Outlook notes to Evertnote, this is not a solution to this issue.

Nov 8, 2011 5:21 PM in response to winston c

On the iPad, go to Settings and choose icloud.


Follow any instructions to set up iCloud if you haven't done so already.


Under iCloud, once set up, there should be some options. Look for Notes and turn this on. Follow any instructions if prompted to set up a @me.com address.


Now exit Setup and goto Notes. There should be an Accounts button on the top left, and clicking it should reveal the iCloud notes folder along with any others.

Nov 8, 2011 5:58 PM in response to lironl

Been there, done that. About 100 times. Only thing that showes up is notes on the iPad. In setting under iCloud I have everything turned on. Under notes in setting the only option I have for default account is on my iPad. I have turned notes on and off. Synced and backed up. Nothing. Working great from my iPhone to mac. Just can't get the iPad to play nice with the Mac and iPhone.

Nov 8, 2011 9:38 PM in response to winston c

One thing to watch out for is that when you turn on notes in Settings -> iCloud, you have to press the Settings button to go back up one level for the changes to take effect. Give this a try.


If that doesn't work, press the home button twice and kill the Notes and Settings apps, then try the Notes app again.


If that still doesn't work, kill the apps again, then turn your iPad off and on.


Does any of this help?

May 4, 2012 10:16 AM in response to winston c

Not sure if you worked this out after all these years but Apple still hasn't come up a better solution then copying each note from your iPhone (or iPad) Notes App and then switching to your iCloud "Account" within Notes (on the same device) and pasting each into another new note (by pressing the "+" in the top right corner). Once I did that and then synced/backed up my iCloud account on said same device did the Notes finally show up on my other device(s).

May 5, 2012 7:29 AM in response to billfromlansdowne

This is what I have discovered. .....

I have an iPhone that I created notes on before I had an iPad or iCloud. Then I got an iPad and iCloud. Everything sync'd fine except notes. After lots of research and an hour tech support session with trouble shooting left and right the bottom line is this. If the note is created with iCloud turned on then it will synch. If the note is created with iCloud turned off then it will not sync. No matter which device you are using. If you have notes that were created on the device with icloud turned off or before you had icloud there will be three "folders" under the notes icon - all notes, iPhone (or iPad ) only notes and iCloud notes.

This is how i moved the notes that were on my phone that would not sync I did a copy and past of the notes I wanted in the cloud that were created on my phone prior to iCloud by copying the note from my phone only folder to the iCloud folder and then deleted it from my iPhone only folder. This worked and the notes are also at my iCloud account at the iCloud website under mail. I tried emailing them to my iCloud account from my phone and they did show up and I could move the emailed note to the notes folder at my iCloud account but it still would not sync to my pad. I even backed up my entire phone to the cloud and then restored my phone but the notes that were originally created and stored in the iPhone notes only folder (originally created either before icloud or with icloud turned off) will not sync.


However, this is a good thing because I just created a note AFTER turning off the iCloud notes option on my iPad and it did not sync to my phone. So this means we have the option of creating notes that we want to sync and notes we do not want to sync from either device.


Hope this helps and is not too confusing.

Shernfl

Syncing notes

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