David Anson
Level 1
(4 points)
Q: Notes only partially upgrading
I upgraded to iOS 9 the other week and then up to El Capitan on 1st October and on 2nd October took delivery of my new iPhone 6S. I went through the initial setup of the iPhone and restored the data from my iPhone 5S and then went in to Notes. It asked me if I would like to upgrade which I duly did. I have not really used Notes all the much in the past but am intending to see how it works across all my devices (MacBook Pro and iPad 2). On my iPhone I saw that there were 7 notes I had written two years ago which were irrelevant and so I deleted them.
I now went into Notes on both my MacBook and iPad and on both devices saw that the original 7 notes were still present. Also, looking at Notes on the iPad, the format did not appear the same as on the phone and I could not see anything on the iPad that would let me update.
How do I get Notes on my MacBook and on my iPad to connect to the new Notes folder on iCloud so that they are all singing from the same hymn sheet?
Thanks
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11)
judysings
Community Specialists
Hi David,
Thanks for your question. Notes is one of my favorite applications, so I was really excited about the new features in iOS 9 and El Capitan. Let's see if we can get this working seemlessly between your three devices.
Just to confirm, when you said you updated to iOS 9 -- did you do that on your iPhone as well as your iPad?
To verify the software version on your iPhone:
- On your iPhone, tap Settings > General > About
- Scroll down and make sure the Version is 9.0.2
- If it is not, tap General in the top-left corner to go back to the General screen. Then tap Software Update and follow the instructions.
On your iPad, tap Settings > General > Software update and follow the instructions to update your iPad to iOS 9.0.2.
On your Mac, confirm the software version by clicking on the Apple in the top-left corner of your computer screen, then click About This Mac. Does it say OS X El Capitan Version 10.11?
Once you've confirmed the correct software is on your devices, next check to see if Notes is turned on in the iCloud settings.
On your iOS devices:
- On the iPhone and iPad, tap Settings > iCloud
- If the button beside Notes is not already on (green), tap to enable Notes
- If you see a request to Merge the Notes, go ahead and do that.
- You may need to quit the apps and relaunch them for these changes to take place.
On your Mac:
- Go to the iCloud website - www.icloud.com, and sign in with your Apple ID (which is an email address) and your Apple ID password.
- From here, you can test to see if your notes are syncing between devices.
- Create a new test note here. It should show up on your Mac, iPad and iPhone.
- Delete the test note from one of your devices. It should disappear everywhere, including online.
David, I'll include a few resources regarding the Notes app and iCloud below.
Resources:
Upgrade your notes with iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan - Apple Support
If the steps above do not resolve your issue, please reply back to this post with additional information, and we'll be happy to delve further into this for you.
Take care,
