Notes app went missing and half my notes are gone!

Question

Level 1

11 points

Notes app went missing and half my notes are gone!

Hello all,

I'm hoping somebody can help me with this....last night my notes app disappeared. I didn't delete it and have no idea why it disappeared off my phone. So I went to the app store and reloaded the notes app. At this point when opening the notes app I had NO notes. I then went into mail and turned on the notes options for each of my email accounts. After doing this about 1/2 of my notes reappeared but I'm still missing about half of my notes. I did check icloud but to no avail. Recently I updated my iphone 6 plus to IOS 10 so I think this is part of the problem.

Any idea on how to find the rest of my missing notes?

Thanks for your help in advance....

Jay

iPhone 6 Plus, iOS 10.0.2

Posted on Oct 8, 2016 10:48 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

pablostol

Level 1

4 points

Jan 15, 2017 8:21 AM in response to Bea Kaycee

You saved me Bea! All my missing notes are back. Thanks🙂

Reply

Answer 2

Radman981 Author

Level 1

11 points

Oct 9, 2016 6:50 PM in response to brenden dv

Look....all I am asking is there some way to see all the notes stored on an iPhone and see what folder they are associated with? I've looked on the notes app and all my email folders show up but half my notes are still missing.

Reply

Answer 3

norm123

Community Specialist

Oct 9, 2016 1:05 PM in response to Radman981

Hi Radman981,

Thanks for upgrading your iPhone 6 Plus to iOS 10! Looks like you're missing some important notes from your device after the upgrade though. If you created a backup before the upgrade, you may be able to restore your notes by restoring the backup! Take a look at the link below for more details and instructions on how to do so.

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup

This should get your notes back to your device. Thanks for using Apple Support Communities to post your question. Have a nice weekend.

Reply

Answer 4

Radman981 Author

Level 1

11 points

Oct 9, 2016 4:18 PM in response to norm123

Unfortunately I did not backup my device prior to this update. In all the IPhones I have owned (3GS, 4, 5, 5S, and 6 plus) I have never observed this kind of behavior. If one reads the most recent posts it looks like there is some sort of issue with the Notes app that makes it act wacky when one upgrades to IOS 10. I am hoping that Apple is working on an update to fix this ASAP!

Is there any other way to identify missing notes and find what folder they are stored in? For example I see on my phone that there are no notes in the "on my iPhone". I find this hard to believe.......

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.......

Reply

Answer 5

brenden dv

Community Specialist

Oct 9, 2016 5:29 PM in response to Radman981

Thanks for trying those steps Radman981. If you are unable to find the remainder of notes, they could be associated with a different note account on your device. If the "on my phone" category shows no notes, it is possible that the notes are stored in a different account on the iPhone. Try looking in the other categories in the sidebar of the Notes app to locate the rest of the notes that are missing. If you had notes associated with your email accounts, you maybe able to import them back into the Notes app. Have a quick look at the link below for details.

Import your notes and files to the Notes app

Let us know how it works out for you. Take care.

Reply

Answer 6

Oct 11, 2016 6:40 PM in response to brenden dv

Like the original poster, my notes too were deleted. I'm not an idiot, I'm aware that I have multiple Notes accounts syncing to my phone. In fact I had/have 3; my work email, my personal email and onto the phone itself. I do not use iCloud, so that is not an issue. When I updated to iOS10, my two email account notes were populating, but the one stored on my phone was not.

Reply

Answer 7

Oct 11, 2016 6:43 PM in response to RicardoELBlanco

UPDATE: For some reason, when I updated the iOS, it auto-archived one of my email notes. Not sure how that happened, but I had to do some deep searching. I'm thinking when you update, it tries to create a new folder. I'm confused, but happy I figured it out.

Reply

Answer 8

Radman981 Author

Level 1

11 points

Oct 12, 2016 10:48 AM in response to RicardoELBlanco

Ricardo,

Can you outline what you did to search your directories on the iPhone? As you mentioned I also have the Notes app linked to my email accounts. I think my issue is the "on my iPhone" folder. Do you know how to search for that folder and access it?

Thanks,

Jay

Reply

Answer 9

Oct 12, 2016 11:51 AM in response to Radman981

I had selected On my iPhone too.

Try:

settings > notes > default account > icloud (instead of On my iphone)

That’s how I got the missing half of my notes back after the (regretted) update to 10.

I don’t understand why or how you could get to anything like a directory on the iPhone. I just know if you don’t choose the settings Apple wants, things go wrong.

Apple wants you to use the cloud.

Reply

Answer 10

Jul 10, 2017 11:26 AM in response to Radman981

Hi,

I wonder if you have already found a way to restore the notes "on my iPhone", mine is missing too, only the ones on my iPhone though, all of my datas were there :'(

Thank you.

Reply

Answer 11

Jul 21, 2017 7:19 AM in response to Radman981

So did you find a way to recover those notes from " on my iphone" folder?

Thanks

Reply

Answer 12

Jul 21, 2017 7:21 AM in response to LindseyLin

Did you find a way by now Lindsey?

Reply