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Why do Notes disappear from my phone?

Recently notes in the iPhone Notes app disappear. I still have 63 notes in the list, but when I edit one, it will disappear after awhile. I can find these notes, with the editing, in my email app in the Notes folder.


Why do they disappear from my phone?

iPhone 4, iOS 6.0.1

Posted on Jan 18, 2013 10:30 AM

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95 replies

Feb 25, 2013 11:28 AM in response to Chazoo12

I have the same problem, and from looking at the forums, so do a lot of other people. I haven't found the answer yet.


For whatever reason, certain notes have disappeared from my master notes list; even though I have not actively chosen to move them from my iPhone to the cloud or to my computer.


I'm hoping that they may have backed up to my computer without me telling it; and then have been dropped from the masterlist. But why would it only do this with certain notes and not others? I have about 12 in my notes master list and have only lost the 2 that I use the most!


Anyone have any insight here? I'm still on 6.0 on an iPhone 4s.

Mar 10, 2013 11:51 AM in response to Petey Mac

It is likely because your notes are synced to your yahoo email account. I had the same problem and realized that the notes were being copied to my yahoo notes folder (on my yahoo account) and being removed from my iphone. If you go to your yahoo account (not on our iphone but on yahoo.com) thetyare there in the notes foler. This was a huge relief for me when I finally found them. This will at least help you retrieve the lost notes 🙂


Then, to prevent this from happening again, go into your iphone settings. Click on Notes. Then change the deafault account to "My iPhone". This will start (and save) all future notes on your phone (rather than in your offline yahoo account). Hope this helps.

Mar 11, 2013 9:24 AM in response to nicholap

Thanks it was a relief to find my notes in my Yahoo acct. But I tried to click on Notes from my IPhone settings and there is not an option to change the default to my Iphone, only has the font option. I tried to turn off the note option on my yahoo account and select the cloud, but they disappeared entirely off my phone. Any help on how to make the stay on my Iphone would be much appreciated!!! Any way to "move" the saved notes back to my Iphone from my Yahoo Acct?

Apr 15, 2013 8:10 PM in response to nicholap

You can goto Settings, to Mail, Contacts and Calendars, settings. Select the Yahoo account, and turn off the syncing with notes.


However It removes all the rest of the notes you may currently have in your notes App. Still trying to find a way to restore all notes to the ipone from Yahoo.

Apr 30, 2013 1:15 PM in response to KyBamaMan

KyBamaMan wrote:


I am having the same problem, but with a twist. I have no notes in my yahoo account, but have a few left on my iPad. I went to yahoo.com via a laptop and not my iPad.

Maybe if you provide some background info, like:


1- The iOS version you're using.

2- What email accounts are you currently using?

3- Do you have an iCloud email account?

4- Go into Settings/Mail,.../(email account) and see if Notes is turned ON.

5- Go into Settings/Notes and see what you have for "Default Account".

6- Are you actually missing notes? Not clear on what symptom you have.


Just a few random comments while you answer the above:


If you don't have any email accounts that support Notes, or if they support it but you have it turned OFF, then any notes you enter on your device will reside only on your device. These notes are part of your backup, so if you ever do lose or accidentally delete them you should be able to recover them by restoring from your device backup.


Once you enable an email account that supports notes, and new note will get saved to whatever account you've designated as the default. Also, once you enable an email account for notes, you can no longer save notes to the device only -- all new notes get saved with the email account you choose.


However, any existing notes that are only on your device from a time before you enabled an email account for notes, those notes remain on your device and they do not automatically get pushed to an email account even if you enable such an account. If you want to associate those notes with an email account, you need to copy the content of the notes and paste them into new notes associated with the account.


If you have multiple email accounts that support notes, the Notes app lets you show all Notes, including those that may be only on your device, or show only notes associated with a particular account (or just the notes that aren't associated with any account). Because of this, some people think they've lost a note when in reality they've accidentally set Notes up to show only a particular account.

Apr 30, 2013 1:43 PM in response to rockmyplimsoul

1 -- iOS 6.1.3

2 -- yahoo

3 -- no cloud email

4 -- I have gone into setting/mail... and turned notes off so they do not sync

5 -- I have gone into setting/notes...and only have font choices

6 -- yes I am missing notes....I have just started using notes recently and some that I used just last week are gone. Just noticed they were missing last night when I went to add something to one of them.


The notes section of settings/mail, contacts, calendars was turned on originally, but none of the notes were listed in my yahoo notes online either, which is why I was confused. I could choose the yahoo account or iPad account (or all) and see them respectively. I turned on the notes section of settings/mail, etc. and two of my current three notes would reappear, but if I turned it off, they would dissappear which tells me they are stored on yahoo notes, but they still don't show up on the on-line yahoo account.


I also tried to reboot as someone suggested they might show back up but they did not.


thanks for the help.

Apr 30, 2013 5:08 PM in response to rockmyplimsoul

Thanks for your comprehensive response rockmyplimsoul


I'm on ios 6.0.1 and I can add some detail to the mystery.


I have used notes substantially for over a year. The notes were always attached to my yahoo email account as long as I can remember. Every note I wrote was saved on my phone and also in the yahoo notes folder, this lasted for quite a long time. Then one day it didn't. I would write a note and it would disappear. After some panic, I found the notes on the yahoo account but they would no longer stay on the phone. All the older notes remained on both yahoo and the phone. But any new note would simply vanish within seconds of creating it. The note would stick around as long as I was editing, but when I went away, and came back, the note would be gone.


I know exactly when this happened, it was December 5th. I have a pile of notes that I created and then would create again trying different text, not quite understanding why they kept disappearing. It was late in January that I figured out I could link up the gmail account and make that the default and my notes would stay in gmail and on the iphone.


I just now made yahoo the default note taker in settings...and created a note...and it remains! Maybe the problem is resolved?


I think that the yahoo servers had a defective setting.

Apr 30, 2013 6:02 PM in response to KyBamaMan

KyBamaMan wrote:



5 -- I have gone into setting/notes...and only have font choices

That part is normal, if you don't haveany accountlinked to Notes, then Settings will only give you the font options since the default is the device itself and not an external account.


If you're linking notes to Yahoo then they get filed in the Notes folder in the account. But given the past history with Yahoo's ability to keep Notes in sync (they occasionally have email problems too), you might want to enable an iCloud email account. You don't have to use iCloud email, in fact you can disable all of the iCloud account features like email, contacts, calendar, etc. but keep the Notes turned on. I've had zero problems with using iCloud for managing Notes, and any changes are pushed to all my other iOS devices.


If you don't link your Notes to anything and just keep them on the device, although they're part of your backup (should you lose them) I wouldn't trust the device to keep them. Somewhat like how Contacts that are entered only on the device (i.e. not linked to an email account to manage contacts) these things may not be so reliable for some reason unless they're linked to an external account.

Apr 30, 2013 6:00 PM in response to Chazoo12

Chazoo12 wrote:


I just now made yahoo the default note taker in settings...and created a note...and it remains! Maybe the problem is resolved?


I think that the yahoo servers had a defective setting.

That is very likely the case. Yahoo sometimes loses the ability to push email, so it wouldn't surprise me if their servers occasionally have trouble managing notes.


As I mentioned above, I trust the native eco-system of iCloud more so than Yahoo or even GMail.

Why do Notes disappear from my phone?

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