Search in the Notes app doesn’t always work

The steps to get my search field in my notes app have not worked since my last couple of iOS upgrades. I do not want to close my notes app because I have tons of notes and don’t want to risk losing them. I want Apple to Tx this issue in the next iOS upgrade please.

I had this on my iPhone. Here's how I fixed it:

1. Go to Settings> Apple ID, iCloud, iTunes & App Store > iCloud
2. When you see "APPS USING ICLOUD" see if the switch by "Notes" is on. If it's on then switch it off.
3. Go to the "Notes" app - you should see all notes that were in the iCloud folder disappear. Don't be alarmed! They are still in iCloud, just getting removed from your phone.
4. Restart your iPhone
5. Again, go to Settings> Apple ID, iCloud, iTunes & App Store > iCloud
6. When you see "APPS USING ICLOUD" find "Notes" and switch it back on.

Your notes will repopulate and be searchable again.

I have the same issue on an iPhone 7 since iOS 12.0 - up to current version 12.1.2. Some notes are not found.

I have over 3100 notes LOCALLY (not iCloud), started in 2009. Turning Siri/Search for notes off and on again does indeed create a new index.

However it does NOT solve the problem, because everytime some different notes are missing (not found) when searching.

I already turned off/on search about 20 times to recreate the index and then it finds notes it didn't find before, but then notes it did find before are now missing in the search results. Date does not seem an issue, it randomly does not find notes of any date.

VERY frustrating! When will this finally be fixed??

None of these solutions fixed mine. I am a big Notes user. This is very frustrating. My search has always been able to find old notes with the search component, but not recent. I have had an iphone since the first version and I’ve been praying for afix since then. This bug finally seemed to be fixed abt 4-6 weeks ago. I was jumping up and down for joy. I’m back to no joy! It hasn’t been working for the past 2 weeks again. Ugh!

Thank you becky_s22 your advice fixed my problem, it was doing my head in not being able to search my notes by name as I have 932 and didn’t want to trawler through them all one by one. I am truly grateful for your help 😃

Somewhere else it was suggested to create a new Notes folder, and move all the notes from one folder to the new one (and back if you want):

1. Create new Folder ("New Folder" on the bottom right of the Folders screen)
2. In the default Notes folder, click Edit (top right)
3. Select Move All (bottom right)
4. move the notes to the new folder

Now you can either wait until the Notes are moved and then work with this new folder (which includes the rebuild of the index), or chose to move them back in the original folder the same way (which also includes a rebuild of the search index).

Please note that the new search does not work instantly. I had several hundred notes, and it took a while until the search finally worked. Initially it seemed as nothing has changed - I could not even search and find the first note that was at the top of the list. But after about 15 minutes, the search worked and was covering the whole app. I guess it works in the background for a while.

Also note that I did fix this in combinations of the other methods suggested - so it's not 100% proven which solution works best, but why not try all?

It happens to me too. Infuriating. Half the reason I continue to buy into the Apple ecosystem is to sync my **** notes.

Which, BTW, is a very old application. And your infrastructure is again broken. Apple software quality has declined in recent years. So many bugs, so many security breaches. Longtime Apple friend Walt Mossberg had to write about it:

https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/3/10900612/walt-mossberg-apple-iphone-ios-mac-osx-app-problems

You folks in support should be making sure that your colleagues know about these consistent failures and how they impact the customer experience.

Eventually I will defect.

I can only agree 110%. It’s so frustrating when you need a note that you know you have but can’t find it. Sometimes it’s very urgent too. There are a few good ideas about fixing this issue here but none are permanent fixe. We need to fix this one APPLE........

Rotten Apple need to fix this bug and at the same time allow search for keywords in individual notes. All this fixes about Cloud download etc are irrelevant as i don’t use Cloud to store notes. It’s a big and a shortcoming and whoever is responsible at Apple needs to be shown the door. So basic to fix but they treat customers with disdain.

You are correct about Hilary’s proposed solution. Unfortunately, it’s not a permanent process. Many thanks to Hilary’s but the best we got so far but we need a permanent fix. I’ve noticed lately that my IPad is ok. So I use to recover the note it make a small change and save it. Then it works for that one note on my cell. I think that it’s the IPhone that is at fault here, at least in my case. It’s an XR, my Vi plus did the same.

This problem has been making me crazy for months. I finally decided to dedicate some time to fixing it. Talked to Apple support and they had no fixes in mind. Finally found this thread and good news, turning Siri Search off and on worked. Now let's see if this problem stays fixed.

OMG! I don’t ever use Siri but i just turned it off and turned it off and i think it has solved my problem a search reveals many more hits now. I think you found the fix Thank You.

As for Apple Thanks for nothing. How do they get away with these bugs that impact so many customers for so long without being on to them. They are so oblivious to the annoyance caused. And if they identified it and fixed it immediately they wouldn’t have so much support time used up! Look at the time of people in this thread that they have wasted. (Amazingly you still don’t have a function that enables you to search for a word within a note ... but that’s a whole other story)

LIFT YOUR GAME APPLE!