wht1

Q: Cannot search Notes "normally" in El Capitan as I could with Yosemite

The search function in Notes is not working for me in El Capitan. I may have made the mistake of selecting upgrade of Notes when iOS9 came out, instead of waiting to set up El Capitan, but on my phone and iPad, I can still search as before and find everything in my iCloud notes.

 

When I search my iMac (27", late 2012, 3.2GHz Intel Core i5 with 10.11) or MacBook Pro (13", early 2011, 2.3GHz Intel Core i5 with 10.11), I do not get all the results the I should get, meaning if I search for text that I used to help file notes, I only get a very few hits compared to all the notes that I have stored with that tag.

 

I have used Macs since I bought a IIsi and have a lot of experience, but not much technical knowledge, so I may well have done something dim.

 

Any help or advice gratefully received.

 

Thanks

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Oct 1, 2015 10:44 PM

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Q: Cannot search Notes "normally" in El Capitan as I could with Yosemite

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  • by Randy Maynard1,

    Randy Maynard1 Randy Maynard1 Oct 7, 2015 7:05 PM in response to wht1
    Level 1 (138 points)
    Safari
    Oct 7, 2015 7:05 PM in response to wht1

    I think I did the same thing you did. I do recall answering some question along the way (about Notes) while doing an upgrade on an iDevice or Mac... for me, every since El Capitan the search function in Notes never finds *anything*. Ever. Totally *****. I have a ton of notes that I store all kinds of info in.... and now I can't find the info when I need it!

  • by johnfromgonderange,

    johnfromgonderange johnfromgonderange Oct 8, 2015 12:50 AM in response to Randy Maynard1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 8, 2015 12:50 AM in response to Randy Maynard1

    Same issue new notes will search but not legacy notes.  If you transfer them into iCloud they will search.  El Capitan off to a bad start all round. Lost a days work on migration issues.

  • by wht1,Solvedanswer

    wht1 wht1 Oct 8, 2015 11:18 AM in response to johnfromgonderange
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 8, 2015 11:18 AM in response to johnfromgonderange

    Hi John (and Randy)

     

    Have just moved all my 626 notes to a new folder, then deleted "All iCloud" notes. That moved them all to "Recently Deleted". I moved them back to the "Notes" folder, and lo and behold, as you correctly say, I can now search, because they seem to be being treated as new notes.

     

    I'm really grateful to you because this makes a difference to my work.

     

    I guess it a line or a few of code that need to be sorted out somewhere.

     

    I hope Apple pick this up.

     

    :-)

     

    Bill

  • by Randy Maynard1,

    Randy Maynard1 Randy Maynard1 Oct 8, 2015 4:02 PM in response to wht1
    Level 1 (138 points)
    Safari
    Oct 8, 2015 4:02 PM in response to wht1

    Thanks Bill,

     

    I just deleted my notes, then moved them from recently deleted to "Notes" in iCloud... and all is well. Easy enough.

     

    Randy

  • by Footballer70,

    Footballer70 Footballer70 Oct 12, 2015 4:22 PM in response to wht1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Oct 12, 2015 4:22 PM in response to wht1

    Got the same problem. Search in Notes works perfectly on my iPhone but returns nothing on my MBP under El Capitan.

  • by ShadowX055,

    ShadowX055 ShadowX055 Oct 13, 2015 10:26 AM in response to wht1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 13, 2015 10:26 AM in response to wht1

    thanks for the work around wht1. Saved me a ton of trouble

  • by wht1,

    wht1 wht1 Oct 13, 2015 1:51 PM in response to ShadowX055
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 13, 2015 1:51 PM in response to ShadowX055

    :-)

  • by wht1,

    wht1 wht1 Oct 13, 2015 1:56 PM in response to Randy Maynard1
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 13, 2015 1:56 PM in response to Randy Maynard1

    :-)

  • by Nopower User,

    Nopower User Nopower User Nov 5, 2015 7:10 AM in response to wht1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 5, 2015 7:10 AM in response to wht1

    If you want the easiest technical solution...  Go through each note and make a minor change (space, period, etc).  This will register the note as a new note and it will be searchable.  It's tedious, but you don't risk botching the file transfers and loosing data.  I had ~200 notes, took me about 5 minutes. 

  • by certman,

    certman certman Jan 4, 2016 4:48 AM in response to wht1
    Level 1 (7 points)
    iPad
    Jan 4, 2016 4:48 AM in response to wht1

    Just a quick add-on to what appears to be a bug not only in El Capitan...

     

    Perhaps code in El Capitan is causing this problem, but I  did not experience the search failure in El Capitan, nor did I have a problem on two different iPads.  Just my iPhone.

     

    On my iPhone (6P) with iOS 9.2 I could not find many different notes with the Notes search function.  I noticed the solution here and decided to try a variation on my iPhone. 

    Instead of deleting the notes, I used the "Move All" feature in iOS and moved them to a temp folder.  I then moved them back to the Notes folder under my iCloud account and search is working once again.

     

    Bizarre to say the least... The absence of this problem in various Google searches confused me.

     

    BTW, I have over 600 notes and noticed that editing a note did indeed put it back in the search results, but doing a minor edit on that many notes was not appealing; so glad the move and move back worked.

  • by LownoteNB,

    LownoteNB LownoteNB Feb 3, 2016 9:34 AM in response to certman
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Feb 3, 2016 9:34 AM in response to certman

    Since I upgraded to El Capitan I too have been unable to use the Search function within Notes on my iMac. First I did a fresh install of OS X at the direction of a Level 2 tech from Apple Support. 

     

    I then tried the suggestions I found here of 1) deleting notes and then putting them back into notes, and/or 2) making a small change in a note which was reported to make them searchable again by one of the contributors.  A couple of nuances.  If I try to make a small change in a note, or even create a new note in Notes itself, it doesn't survive quitting the application providing an error message "Multiple validation errors occurred"       When I say OK, it then tells me changes won't be saved , and they are not. 

     

    I then loaded my Notes in icloud.com in Safari, and also attempted to delete and then re-add the note--again it was searchable in the Safari Notes page but not in the Notes app on my iMac.  I also edited a note in the Safari Notes page of icloud, and the changes came down just fine when I re-opened Notes on my iMac, but the search function still didn't work or worked very incompletely.

     

    I'm afraid this is a bug and a truly awful one for me since I use the Notes function extensively and I guess the only way I can do that is to keep a tab open in Safari with the Notes page of icloud loaded.

     

    Erik Hansen

    Scotland

  • by Cycle11111,

    Cycle11111 Cycle11111 Mar 23, 2016 9:59 AM in response to LownoteNB
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 23, 2016 9:59 AM in response to LownoteNB

    I get search results now, but cannot figure out how to go to the results within a specific note.  The search results on the left pane show me the note or notes where it was found but I cannot find a way to goto the result within the note.  Any suggestions?

  • by moomin-mama,

    moomin-mama moomin-mama May 18, 2016 5:08 PM in response to wht1
    Level 1 (26 points)
    May 18, 2016 5:08 PM in response to wht1

    Forgive me if I'm being stupid here and missing something – but if I follow the steps outlined in the "solve" – won't I lose all my folder organization, because I'll be putting ALL my notes in one folder, and then bringing ALL notes back into iCloud as if they are new? I have 700 notes, most now unsearchable, but nicely organized into lovely folders, which I'm assuming I will lose during the solve. Or am I missing something, will my folder organization be retained in the solve from John and Randy? Thanks.

  • by wht1,

    wht1 wht1 May 18, 2016 10:42 PM in response to moomin-mama
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Desktops
    May 18, 2016 10:42 PM in response to moomin-mama

    I'm not sure whether folder structures will be preserved - that's a step (at least) beyond me, unless you delete and recover each folder separately maybe ?

     

    Good luck.

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