I forgot the password for my locked notes. How can I reset the password?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
See the following from Keep your notes secure with password-protection - Apple Support
If you forgot your notes password
You can unlock a note only when you enter the password that it's locked with. If you forgot your password, Apple can't help you regain access to your locked notes.
You can reset your password, but this won’t give you access to your old notes. It will, however, let you password protect any notes that you create from that point forward with the new password. This could lead to you having multiple notes with different passwords.
If you have multiple passwords, you can't tell which password you should use when you look at your notes in the Notes list. When you open a note locked by your old password but enter your current password, you'll see an alert that you entered the wrong password with a hint for your old one. If you then enter the correct old password, you get the option to update that note's password to your current one.
Reset your notes password
When you reset your Notes password, it doesn't delete or change the password of your notes that are already locked. If you have a note that uses an old password, you can update it to the new password when you enter the old password, remove the old password, then apply your new password to the note.
On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:
- Go to Settings > Notes > Password.
- Tap Reset Notes Password.
- Enter your Apple ID password.
- Tap Reset Notes Password again.
- Enter your new password and password hint.
On your Mac:
- Open Notes.
- In the menu bar, click Notes > Reset Password > OK.
- Enter your Apple ID password.
- Click Reset Password.
- Enter your new password and password hint.
If you have enabled the Touch ID / Face ID function for the notes password, you can open it with that and copy the content to an unlocked note. After that if you change the password you can still access the old locked notes.
I recently switched from iPhone 7 Max to the iPhone 11 ProMax. When I did the transfer I forgot to unlock the locked notes on my phone. I’d always used touch-ID to access them but on the 11 that isn’t an option. After scouring the Internet I found no solutions to get into these old notes. After resigning to delete these notes I was prompted to answer if I wanted to use Face-ID to delete the note. I said yes and the note was deleted. I then wondered if that had now enabled Face-ID for my other old locked notes and lo and behold - it did!!! I can now access my old notes!! So in deleting one I got access to the rest. I don’t know if sharing the note prompts the same thing but I can say deletion does. Hope this helps.
Incidentally, I have just managed to remove the lock from the note in question via my MacBook Pro - using TouchID.
In case it helps anyone - Notes > Right-click on the locked note > Remove Lock > TouchID prompt.
It looks like this only works if the note password is in your keychain as my new test note (never opened on my MacBook) did not offer TouchID.
There could be 2 workarounds:
1) Get back to your older device momentarily; unlock all locked notes using TouchID/FaceID.
2) If you have notes setup on your MacBook with a Touch ID, use Touch ID on your Mac to unlock all your locked notes.
Next, reset your notes password to something you would remember/ write it down somewhere and then re-lock these notes.
What I did was to reset my passcode, then allow the iPhone to use Face ID or Touch ID (either is applicable). After that, I made a locked note with my new password and used Face or Touch ID to unlock it. Finally, you go to the original locked note and unlock it with Face or Touch ID.
It took me 2 hours to figure it out!
If the hint says: “The password you used to unlock your iPhone” after you trying 3 times to no avail (presumably after changing to a new phone), apparently that means your notes are locked by the FIRST password you ever set your past phone for. So the best thing for you to do is to think long and hard back in the time when you first get the previous iPhone what password could you have used to lock your phone.
I have changed my phone’s password several times so I tried many different passwords and failed until I almost gave up and think back to the time where I first got my last phone and what was important to me then, and what 6 digit code could I have used to lock my phone with.
The whole thing is very stupid because people change their phone’s passwords multiple times through their time of using the phone and we forget our first password that locks our phone with. Apple, at least make the password be auto-set to the LAST password we used to lock our phones, not first - if you’re going to give us all that trouble to unlock it to begin with!
I hope this helps! Thanks!
I got a text that told me to go to the NOTES app in settings, not the notes on your phone screen. This is what messed with my mind for a long time . I was trying to rectify my lost password though my notes from my screen. You need to go to settings-notes-password-and turn on face ID. It was as simple as that. For extra Measure I restarted my phone. I went to the locked note, touched it, and it opened with face ID. Ya 😁
The way that I fixed the same problem was, I had to go unlock the notes on my old phone with my finger print and copy and paste the note into a new note. Then the note will automatically come up on you new phone, unlocked, and then you can set a new password for the note and lock it. Hope this helps!
I don’t know if this will work or if any of you guys still have your old devices. But I just tried to remove the lock from my notes on my old device and it worked! If your new device is connected and all your notes were saved to the Cloud, it should work. Then you can just add a new lock if you wanted and that lock will be with your new password. Just be sure to write it down this time LOL!
TL;DR • Enter Locked Notes on Old Device -> Remove Lock (in the right upper hand corner click the three ••• and then “Remove Lock”) -> BOOM should have access from there!
And if you want to keep it locked and you changed to password, just add a new lock and it should work with the new password!
Hope this was clear but if you need clarification, lmk!
PS205 wrote:
Hi, I am having the same issue and when I went to Apple to get assistance, it was a useless attempt.
Please let me know if you figure a way to unlock your old notes. I really need to access mine.
Thanks,
P
There is no way to access them. As Apple has indicated in the article linked above:
If you forgot your notes password
You can unlock a note only when you enter the password that it's locked with. If you forgot your password, Apple can't help you regain access to your locked notes.
Abandon all hope, my friend....
GB
sbfromcalifornia wrote:
I am having the same issue! The older notes were Touch ID -- I never set up a numerical ID. Didn't occur to me that upgrading to the X would mean I would have neither Touch nor numerical. Lesson learned.
Anyone know a work around for this?
Sorry, but you had to set up a password in order to lock your Notes:
Set up your notes password
Before you can lock your notes, create a password that you can easily remember. If you're concerned about forgetting your password, make sure that you give yourself a password hint and that you set up Touch ID or Face ID. If you forget your password, Apple can't help you reset it.
From this support article: Keep your notes secure with password-protection - Apple Support
Try any password that you might have used. Your Lock Screen password, a random password. Do you have Face ID set up on your "X". If you don't, set it up and see if that will open your note.
Best of luck,
GB
Hey! There I found something for whom who has the same problem with notes app that you forgot your password.
What I did is—
Rest the password as in the above steps.
And when resetting the password enable Touch ID.
1. Now go to notes app and (you can’t open your password protected notes)
2. swipe note left, this will bring remove the lock icon tap that it will ask for fingerprint tap your home button and you are good to go.
3. Do this with all of your previous password protected notes. Then
4. Swipe left note now it will bring lock icon tab that and enter your new password and that’s all.
Your notes has new life again enjoy my friend.
Here is Apple's article regarding locking and unlocking notes: Keep your notes secure with password-protection - Apple Support
This is a current article which clearly states you can use your Touch ID if you set it up that way when you locked the notes. So, not sure what issue you are running into. Can you explain what is happening exactly?
And no one was implying that anyone has been stupid.
GB
I had the issue when I changed from Touch ID to Face ID and the locked note wouldn’t accept Face ID to unlock. I deleted the note and it asked if I wanted to use Face ID to do so. I clicked yes and deleted the note. This then reactivated Face ID for unlocking notes and I recovered the note from the deleted folder. Face ID now works on the note.
create a new note and lock it, iPhone will then ask you if you want to unlock with face ID, say yes. Now you can go back and unlock the old notes. You may have to reset Notes password first, in order to create another locked note. Once unlocked you can relock it with your new password
How to reset forgotten Notes password on iPhone
