I save all my Notes in iCloud and someone was showing me a few things yesterday. We went to Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Manage Storage > Notes > Delete Data - and poof without warning almost 10 years worth of NOtes are ALL gone!!
Is there anyway to recover the Notes?
Thanks for the pointers guys, I got my Notes back!
Here is what I did:
I had a backup of my iPhone on my computer. So, I decided to restore my phone from this backup using iTunes - only to see all the notes in Notes come back but then vanish just as fast. I realized that this was because I had actually deleted my notes from iCloud and even though a copy existed in my local backup, they were getting deleted once the iCloud account on my phone synced up with Apple. So, I removed the SIM card and made sure none of the WiFi hotspots that my device could connect to, were reachable. And then I did another restore from backup. Now because there was no connectivity, my phone's iCloud account couldn't sync up with Apple. Hence the notes stayed locally on the device. Then, I went to Settings > Notes and enabled "On My iPhone" Account. Then, back in Notes, "moved all" the notes to this local account. Re-enabled network connectivity and moved the now "local" notes back up to iCloud - and all is golden. Did learn though not to be in much of a hurry before "deleting"... Ooh happy days are here again!!
Thanks for the pointers guys, I got my Notes back!
Here is what I did:
I had a backup of my iPhone on my computer. So, I decided to restore my phone from this backup using iTunes - only to see all the notes in Notes come back but then vanish just as fast. I realized that this was because I had actually deleted my notes from iCloud and even though a copy existed in my local backup, they were getting deleted once the iCloud account on my phone synced up with Apple. So, I removed the SIM card and made sure none of the WiFi hotspots that my device could connect to, were reachable. And then I did another restore from backup. Now because there was no connectivity, my phone's iCloud account couldn't sync up with Apple. Hence the notes stayed locally on the device. Then, I went to Settings > Notes and enabled "On My iPhone" Account. Then, back in Notes, "moved all" the notes to this local account. Re-enabled network connectivity and moved the now "local" notes back up to iCloud - and all is golden. Did learn though not to be in much of a hurry before "deleting"... Ooh happy days are here again!!
Allan Eckert wrote:
If they are not in the Recently Deleted folder, you will have to restore the backup.
If they were syncing Notes using iCloud, they won't be in your backup.
It doesn’t include the information already stored in iCloud, like Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Mail, Notes, shared photos, iCloud Photo Library, My Photo Stream, Health data, and files you store in iCloud Drive.
Bento Cali
Thank you, so much. I have spent at least 10 hours over the last 3-4 days struggling with apparently corrupted Notes data in iCloud. My Notes.app would hang on my iMac 2017, iPhone 6 and my iPad Air 2. However I had a good backup of my iPad from iTunes before the corruption. I tried restoring, but as you found, iCloud would come in and bash the iPad notes.
I used your method and it worked. Well done! You are truly a "steely eyed missile man" of Apple devices!
Have you checked for a Recently Deleted folder in the Notes app?
If they are not in the Recently Deleted folder, you will have to restore the backup.
URGENT - Recover iCloud Notes
