Missing all but 2 of my local Notes after iOS 10.0.2 update

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Level 1

10 points

Missing all but 2 of my local Notes after iOS 10.0.2 update

I backed up my iPhone 6s with iTunes 12.5.1.21 and then installed iOS 10.0.2. Now my extensive list of local notes has dwindled to only 2. I had the Notes app set to store them "On My iPhone" because I have had trouble with notes disappearing when the app would sync with iCloud in the past.

It seems there's no way to prevent losing data with this app.

I don't see any Notes listed in iTunes for my device either and the Notes app on my Mac has no saved notes, since I have never used it.

Any help would be appreciated regarding recovery and future prevention.

These are important notes that I can't simply rewrite from my personal memory.

iPhone 6s, iOS 10.0.2

Posted on Sep 29, 2016 3:20 PM

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Answer 1

tomahawk Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 29, 2016 4:00 PM in response to tomahawk

I got an additional 8 notes back by restoring my backup from yesterday, but these are old notes from last year, and are listed as being in my iCloud account, not local. All but 2 of my local notes are still missing and the 2 I have are also pretty old! This makes no sense to me.

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Answer 2

tomahawk Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 30, 2016 10:26 AM in response to tomahawk

Looks like there are some 3rd party utilities to recover lost notes.

I used Gihosoft iPhone Data Recovery and it worked okay (can't complain much since it is free), though many of my longer notes were truncated, at least I got them back, and could restore the missing parts from other resources. Now I have to figure out the best way to back them up so they won't get lost next time.

On a side note, I have an iPhone 4s which got dunked in the Yuba River, and I'm going to try one of the 3rd party utilities to see if I can recover the photos and videos on it... It starts up, but the screen is black...

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