How to reset forgotten Notes password on iPhone

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:

1. Go to Settings > Notes > Password.
2. Tap Reset Notes Password.
3. Enter your Apple ID password.
4. Tap Reset Notes Password again.
5. Enter your new password and password hint.

On your Mac:

1. Open Notes.
2. In the menu bar, click Notes > Reset Password > OK.
3. Enter your Apple ID password.
4. Click Reset Password.
5. Enter your new password and password hint.

There are so many posts about locked Notes problem, and I can’t read every single one of them. As we all know by now that resetting Notes password doesn’t fix this issue. Here is what I did to “transfer” locked Notes from my 6S to XS.

I have over 100 Notes on my 6S and about 25 of them are locked. I still can open locked Notes on 6S with finger print ID. However, I could not open same locked Notes on my XS. It kept asking for password.

Here is is what I did.

1. On 6S, I opened the locked Note using finger print ID. Once it’s opened, I added “- New” on the title (top line). I did this because there will be two same Notes when I copy it onto XS.
2. While it’s opened, I unlocked the Note.
3. Using Airdrop, I transferred the Note from 6S to XS. Now I have two Notes on my XS. One with original name/title and lock, and the other with “- New” on title with no lock.
4. Repeated Step #3 for all locked Notes.
5. Once all locked Notes were transferred, I reserved the Notes password on my XS using Face ID.
6. I deleted the one with lock.
7. Removed “- New” from the title of unlocked Note.
8. Add lock to the Note using Face ID.

It took several steps to accomplish this but a lot more convenient than retyping all locked Notes contents.

I FIGURED IT OUT.

1. You have to reset your password for notes in settings (which still doesn’t unlock the old note you want)
2. Then turn on Face ID or Touch ID for notes.
3. Open a new note and type something to save the note and lock the new note you just made.
4. Once you lock the new note using the new password you just set up in step one go to your old locked note and open using Face ID or Touch ID !!!!!

IT WORKS!!!!!! Not sure how I thought of doing it this way but I have my old notes back!

Hi! Just in-case anyone else searches for this problem this worked for me using my Macbook Pro (without Touch ID) and Apple Watch.

1. Load up the Notes app. Find a locked note. Enter a wrong password a couple of times so the Reset Password button appears.
2. Reset your password. (Just go and do it. You can still open old locked notes with Touch, Face ID or Apple Watch)
3. Load up your old locked notes on a device with either Face or Touch ID, OR any Mac that supports "Use your Watch to unlock apps and your Mac" (The latter is what I did, FYI)
4. With the note unlocked and open click "remove lock", then "Lock Note". So you're basically 're-locking' with your new password.

That's it! Works for me. Initially I, god, went through each note copying and pasting the text into a new TextEdit document each time, adding the date and time from the note manually. This way I ended up with 48 TextEdit documents open. Let me tell ya... quitting that app and having to review each one clicking "DELETE" was a pain ontop of a multitude of pains caused by this. My plan being to delete the original locked notes and copy the old ones back in having to put up with the broken dates on them. I don't even know how this happened. I can only assume iOS at the time created one of those big long generated passwords for me and saved to Keychain. Well, my keychain did show a suspiciously generated password for Notes but entering that didn't work. Not sure what happened but now I'm done with that method above. Phew!

If you have forgotten your password, you are not going to be able to see the note.

There is no “backdoor” or other “reset” once a Notes password has been set.

Sorry.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205794

Sorry, but there is no recovery method.

Notes are already secured by multiple layers of cryptologically secure - but recoverable - means.

Adding an additional password is an optional, “extra security layer” for which the user takes full responsibility for recovery.

See following iOS User Guide excerpt:

Important: If you forget your notes password, and you can’t use Face ID or Touch ID to unlock your notes, you won’t be able to view your locked notes, and Apple can’t help you regain access to those locked notes.

Ref: https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/iphone/iphf177bb154/ios

I had this issue too, the notes that I couldn't remember the password for were originally created on an iPhone 7 plus and I just upgraded to the iPhone 11 and forgot the password. Apple Support couldn't offer me a solution & all the steps they gave me I tried prior to contacting them & they also sent me the link to this forum. Face ID wasn't showing as an option to unlock the note nor was Touch ID on my iPad.

Ultimately what ended up working was I had to create a new notes password (no this doesn't change the password to the old notes) in settings > notes > password > change password. "Use Face ID" was highlighted already. I then made a new test note and locked it and when I hit "view note" to unlock it the Face ID option read my face and opened. I then went to the old notes and hit view note and Face ID appeared as an option & opened! As a safety measure I copied and pasted the text of the old notes into new notes (so I deleted the old notes). That way if Face ID is somehow disabled they can be unlocked with the current password. Hope this helps someone.

Here’s what i did. i first went to settings>notes>password reset. It’ll promt you to enter in your Apple ID password. once you change it enable your finger print option in notes. Go back to settings>notes>Password> Touch ID it’ll then ask you for your notes password. put in the password you just rest it to. Then go to the notes app and it’ll let you in with your fingerprint. I suggest unlocking it permanently.

Unfortunately it’s not a fluke. I tried everything including working with my company’s I.T. department to find a solution. What worked for me may not work for you, but I will tell you what I did. What finally fixed the issue for me is I selected that I wanted to DELETE the note that I could not open. As soon as I did that, a prompt popped up asking if I wanted to enable Face ID for notes. I was like are you kidding?? I had tried to access the locked notes for days. Ha ha When I indicated that I did want to enable Face ID for notes, the note indeed deleted as I had requested. Then I just opened the RECENTLY DELETED folder and restored it. Then I just selected to lock it again and it was treated like a new note so I was able to enter the password I wanted to assign to it. I hope this works for you!

I actually just have the first X from last year. The only other issue we’ve had in my family with this phone (hubs too) is that it will not pair with any of our Bluetooth speakers. Apple says it’s because the speakers are older models. They have opened trouble tickets about the issue. ☹ But I hope this fixes your notes issue!

I had the same problem. Set a password and used Touch ID to access my protected notes.

This morning I tried to access a locked note with a wet finger and it locked me out requiring my password.

Luckily I had other notes protected by the same password.

I opened one of these other notes using Touch ID and it opened. I then closed that note and went to my note list. I picked the note I had just opened and swiped left. A padlock symbol appeared which allowed me to remove the password from the note. I then did the same thing with the one I had locked with my wet finger and it removed the password allowing me to open that note without a password.

Have changed my notes password and locked the notes using the swipe left feature. The notes now need Touch ID or the new password to open them.

If you forget the password, there is no way to recover it, other than using the hint which you made when the password was created. However, the hint will only be shown after three failed attempts at entering the password. BUT if you are able to unlock the note with Face ID or fingerprint, you can then remove the lock from the note, then go into settings (as others have outlined), and reset the password. You can then add a lock to the note again and it will be the new password...which you can write down or tattoo to your arm since apple doesn’t give you any other way of resetting the password if it has been forgotten.

When I got a new phone, once all of the data is transferred over, and I had set up Face ID, I could unlock old notes with my new Face ID. I couldn’t open them at first because I had forgotten the password so I did what others have suggested, opened the note on the old device and copied and pasted the information into a new note on the new device and then locked it when I knew Face ID would open it.

I had same problem, and there isn’t a way to recover it that I could find. But I was able to get into my notes another way. I set up face id to open notes 😃

It works, i went to the locked notes and opened it by face id. It ask you to open note , you click on that and it opens .

OK, I think this is how I set up Face ID on Notes. I went to notes scroll down to password, click on it, and it took me to where you can switch on face id button.

Relation between changing your Apple ID password n unable to open your locked notes, with forgotten password.

If you change your Apple ID password , and if you have forgotten your old notes password, the biometric option for those old locked notes will also be disabled permanently . AND nothing can be done. Just delete those folders! And completely forget that you can ever recover it !

Only one thing can help!

If you could recall your password.

In summary:

Lesson learned: 🎊 🎈

-> Before changing Apple ID password, first remove all locks from all your locked notes. Because biometric is still working at this point. So even if you don’t remember passwords for those notes, you can unlock notes ( with Touch ID biometric) and remove locks. Then at this point, you can change your Apple ID password & finally apply new lock password to notes.

And most important, never forget any iOS password, as Apple is never going to help you in the name of High Securty.

keelog wrote:

I have this same problem, and the problem with all the answers is they still don’t provide a way to get into your locked note.

That's right, because there is no way to get into your locked note. So, you can read answers all day long, and you won't find the one you are looking for because Apple has stated:

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.

That seems pretty clear to me.

GB

Gsquarex2 wrote:

I forgot my password on one my Notes application on my iphone5

From Apple:

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.