My notes are gone

Are you signed into the iCloud account where your Notes are stored, and do you have the Notes app turned on under Settings>iCloud?

Can you see your notes when you sign into your iCloud account via your browser (iCloud.com, sign in, select Notes)?

Best,

GB

The same thing happened to me, and I am furious. It happened after installing High Sierra and trying to turn off ICloud for Notes.

I bought a program called Syncios Data Recovery and it worked, but I turned off iCloud everywhere before using it so I wouldn't lose things again. Now I can't add events to my local calendar on MacBook! My devices don't talk to each other but I expected that. Wll let you know if I get a fix for keeping everything "On My Mac" and also using iCloud.

Anyway, you can get your notes back

If you turned off iCloud for Notes, what did you expect to happen? If you had Notes under the "On My Mac" section, they would have remained. If they were under iCloud, then they are going to disappear from your Mac. Did you look in iCloud.com via your browser to see if they still were there?

Also, when you turn off iCloud or sign out of it, iCloud creates an Archive file (which is how you recovered your Notes with your purchased software - it has to be stored somewhere in order to recover it) on your Hard Disk under Devices. All you have to do is click on your your Mac under Devices, and search for Archive. You will see it there.

Best,

GB

I expected to be asked, as with other apps, if I wanted to save data on my Mac. Evidently, according to an Apple support agent on the phone, Notes are not treated as, for example, Calendar entries are. They were not in iCloud.com,

I appreciate your information but found your first sentence rather truculent. I was on the support website because I am not a computer expert. Medicine is time-consuming enough.

Can you clarify where your Notes were before you turned off Notes in iCloud? You were on your Mac, correct? And were your Notes under iCloud or under On My Mac? I just tried what you described (turned off Notes under iCloud in System Preferences), and you are correct in stating that you are not warned about those Notes that are under iCloud being removed from your Mac. When you turn them off on your iOS device, you are warned.

However, there is nothing that should have caused them to be removed from iCloud.com. Is it possible that the Notes were on an Outlook account or some other type of service like that? When you checked to see if they were in iCloud.com, are you certain you signed into iCloud via your browser to the same iCloud account that you have (or had) signed in on your Mac?

Did you check your HD to see if you have an iCloud Archive that has your Notes in it?

Best,

GB

I recently upgraded the Mac to High Sierra. I turned off iCloud as Notes manager on the Mac and lost both iCloud and "On my Mac"notes. When I turned on each of my two iPads in succession, I saw my notes disappear before my eyes. iCloud was turned on, on both. On one iPad there were definitely both iCloud and local selections. I have recovered the notes on my older iPad, but not yet on my new one. I use no other system such as Outlook, and have only one iCloud account. My calendar, e.g., remained but not the notes.

I did not back up before Sierra, unfortunately, but I have an older backup with the El Capitan OS, and after saving my newer pictures on Dropbox and turning iCloud on for Calendar, Reminders, Notes, and Mail (all I ever used it for),I am going to try to downgrade. I will probably check twice with an Apple agent before doing this, or may go to an Apple shop to make sure things go OK.

Thank you for your interest.

So, when you checked iCloud.com, you did not see anything in your Notes app there? By iCloud.com, I mean going to your internet browser and going to the iCloud.com website.

And did you check on your Macintosh HD in your Finder and do a search for Archive to see if you have any iCloud Archives there?

Best,

GB

I put my calendar back in iCloud as a start to backing up for downgrade (I have printer problems with High Sierra as well aas the other concerns, so definitely want to downgrade) and on the website for iCloud the calendar is there and a few reminders, but no notes. There are two videos in Archive on the Mac and in iCloud.com that I meant to put there, but I never wished to store Photos otherwise. There is nothing else in the local iCloud archive.

Can you clarify the connection between AOL and your Notes? Are you indicating that your Notes were under AOL and not iCloud? What grouping do they appear under on your iPhone 6?

GB