iPad2 and iPhone 68 Plus unable to sync Outlook Notes from my Windows PC using iTunes 12.3.0.44. I've read and read but have seen ZERO solutions to this issue. Prior to updating to iTunes 12 AND iOS 9, there was an option to sync Outlook Notes. It is now gone! Very frustrating searching Apple and Microsoft to find the solution and finding none -- other than potentially uninstalling iTunes and re-installing an earlier version.
iPhone 6 Plus, iOS 9
The solution I found was rather cumbersome but it worked. iTunes automatically syncs Outlook Notes but there are no options to control this and if you upgrade to iOS 9 and the latest iTunes, your Notes will get scrambled.
So this is how I did it. I dragged all my (unscrambled) Notes to a folder and then deleted them all from Outlook and my iPhone 5. Then I laboriously copied the contents of every Note in that folder to a new Note in Outlook, all 51 of them. Then I synced my iPhone with iTunes and voila - all back to normal, no strange messages about my iPhone disconnecting before Notes were synced. It's all back the way it was.
I hope that this helps. Cheers, Ziggy
This worked!
Thank you.
Lawrence
I tried all sorts. Nada.
In the end, I had to do the same thing as CarlB56, with a little nuance.
Environment: Windows-7 Ultimate Edition, Office 2007, iTunes 12.3.0.44, iPhone 6 Plus, iOS 9.0.2
- In "Settings"->"Mail, Contacts, Calendars"->"Accounts"->[MyEmailAcct]-> Make sure the "Notes" button is set to Green (button to the right).
- In Outlook I highlighted all my Notes.
- Right click and selected "Moved to Folder"
- I selected the "New" button.
- Entered "NotesBkup" in the "Name" field and hit "OK"
- Here's where Outlook got weird ... it popped up a warning dialogue saying it might take some time to move the items, which I "OK" acknowledged. BUT, instead of copying/moving the Notes to the new folder, it copied them to all to a Mail Draft as Attachments! Go figure.
So then I just did what Carl did.
- For each Note, I created a "New" Note in Outlook, then I did Copy/Paste from the Note attachment in the email draft, to the new Note in Outlook.
- Once I'd reproduced each Note, I then re-synched the iPhone6Plus ... all Notes properly synched this time.
- I test-edited a Note on the iPhone and re-synched with iTunes. It synched the change.
- I test-edited a Note in Outlook and re-synched with iTunes. It also synched that change.
Important observations: It didn't make duplicate Notes entries, it didn't scramble any, and it didn't lose any. So, I guess I declare this issue resolved, using CarlB56's solution. Kudos Carl ... lose 200 House Points, Apple, and send the engineer responsible to detention with Professor Snape.
as combination of Ziggy124 and Nonhominem, i deleted all notes from outlook and then on the phone.
from my outlook Deleted items, i could easily find my notes, opened each one, copied, and created new items/moreitems/note, and pasted.
voila - i seem to be able to edit on either the phone or in outlook, and it's stopped telling me my phone disconnected during sync.
now to copy/paste all of my old notes.
It actually only worked ONCE. After I experimented with the synching back-and-forth, it stopped working again. Nothing I did could get it to re-synch Notes in any way. On the advice of another thread I downloaded AkrutoSync and got Notes back on my iPhone6Plus using that. I only ever bought an iPhone because it could replace my iPod, defunct PalmPilot, and Phone. The most important of which was the PalmPilot's multiple functions. So, if Apple isn't going to fix this any time soon - and I see no evidence to suggest they even care about it - as I'm not in a contract, I'll ditch this iPhone and I won't upgrade my iPad. I'll switch to Windows-based products for my Tablet and Phone, and revert to just using my old iPod in the car. I'm just really astonished that Apple hasn't addressed this problem with its consumer base, because it's a major issue for a lot of us ... maybe I shouldn't be astonished, because this is exactly how Apple became after Steve Jobs was ousted in 1985 and they put a series of wannabe's in charge of the company who destroyed consumer confidence in the company's products so thoroughly that Apple almost went bankrupt. Are they repeating history now that Steve isn't around to keep them focused? I'm starting to wonder if that's the case.
And the latest iOS update caused the same problem to return.
But, found a sweet solution.
Found a little macro to export each note to its own txt (Notepad) file, deleted all the notes in both Outlook and in the iPhone, then recreated each note in Outlook by copying the contents of each txt file into a newly created note.
The export macro took 5 seconds to create and 3 seconds to run. Here's the site with super easy to follow steps:
http://h0w2.blogspot.com/2013/03/how-to-convert-outlook-notes-to-be-text.html
Lawrence
Hi Lawrence,
I tried doing this manually because I only had around 50 notes. I copied the notes from Outlook to text files on my computer and deleted them from Outlook. I also deleted all the notes from my iPhone. Then I laboriously created new Outlook notes by pasting from those text files and essentially recreated all the notes.
It worked once. The second sync completely ignored the notes and watching the iTunes activity bar on the sync showed that iTunes did not even try to sync Notes at all. It has been like that ever since - no error messages, nothing telling me that my iPhone disconnected before Notes could sync. It just ignores Notes completely.
I contacted Apple Support and spoke to a consultant who received all the details of this problem. He told me that it appears to be an incompatibility between the text-only Notes format in Outlook and the new rich-text format of iPhone Notes. Check this article:
http://tidbits.com/article/15948
It states - "Before you perform the upgrade, it’s also important to note that the syncing protocol has changed as well to provide increased speed and reliability, so Notes will no longer sync via IMAP or Microsoft Outlook once you upgrade."
That says it all. I think that it's now a matter for Apple programmers and software engineers to somehow restore text-only synchronisation between the iPhone Notes app and the Outlook Notes app. I don't think that beating our heads against the wall trying all the remedies in this forum will do anything because it's a compatibility and software programming issue that only Apple and Microsoft can solve by making their respective Notes apps compatible and Apple restoring the Notes sync to iTunes.
Further to my previous post here, I should have said that the Apple consultant has sent this issue to the engineers to see if it can be resolved and I am now awaiting his report and a hopeful solution.
Thanks Ziggy.
It turns out my solution worked...for 12 hours. <sigh>
Appreciate you taking the effort to raise the flag at Apple. Helpful article, too.
Lawrence
Update...
Just upgraded to Windows iTunes 12.3.1.23 and iOS 9.1.
Sync bug not resolved.
Lawrence
ditto, what Lawrence said. My enthusiasm was premature - stopped working again the next day.
I need a cross-platform solution for notes and I cannot afford to wait for Apple. So, I'm testing out MS OneNote.
Lawrence
Going to give this a try. Can't hurt anything!
Of course anything is worth a try, but it will have to be a solution that does not involve iTunes. As the Apple consultant in the USA told me, Apple engineers confirmed that synchronisation between Apple Notes and Outlook Notes has been totally deleted, so a third party application will be the only way to achieve this - if there is such a thing.
What does concern me is that if Apple is heading in some sort of direction to isolate itself from Microsoft Outlook, Apple may also remove synchronisation between Contacts and Calendar. If that happens, my iPhone will be useless for my business interests and I will throw it away and move to another platform entirely. I imagine that most business users will do the same.
The whole idea of the iPhone for me is to essentially use it as my portable office in my pocket when I am away from my home office. The three main applications that allowed me to conduct my business when away were Contacts, Calendar and Notes that synced to Outlook. Now Notes is permanently broken and if either or both the other two applications fail to sync with Outlook, it's goodbye iPhone and Apple for me.
iTunes 12 Still doesn't sync w/Outlook Notes
