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Home / How-to / iPad / iPhone: Unable to sync Notes to iCloud problem, fix

iPad / iPhone: Unable to sync Notes to iCloud problem, fix

Last Updated on November 17, 2011 by SK

Several people have reported that they could not sync Notes from an iPad to an iPhone, even though iCloud is turned on in settings.

Fix:

  1. Delete the iCloud account in the iCloud settings on your iPad
  2. Turn your iPad iCloud settings off and on and sign in with your Apple ID
  3. Turn off Notes in the iCloud settings; then turn on
  4. Check iCloud as the default account in the Notes settings.

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Filed Under: How-to Tagged With: iCloud, performance

Comments

  1. Lisa says

    December 16, 2011 at 3:59 PM

    Will doing this erase the notes in my iPad?

    Reply
    • Tim says

      November 14, 2012 at 9:33 AM

      I am not sure. I don’t think so, however I have bad experience with contacts disappearing from my iPhone after iCloud sync. I backed up my iphone notes to my computer using CopyTrans Contacts first. Only then I followed the steps and it worked – however, it is worth keeping a save offline backup of your iphone notes!

      Reply
  2. Laura Otto says

    December 26, 2011 at 7:07 AM

    I did what you said, there are no notes showing up on my iPhone 4 what am I doing wrong. Same with iPhoto no new taken photos show up even though settings are on iCloud as per instructions Please help me this would make my life so much easier, as it is I must have my iPad with me to access important info. Nor does this info show up on my mac pro,the notes. And when I take photos with iPhone i still have to download to my mac and to iPad

    Reply
    • Lisa says

      January 14, 2012 at 4:44 AM

      Please let me know if you resolved this. I am having same issue ;(. Thanks

      Reply
  3. Taz says

    January 3, 2012 at 8:32 AM

    I tried this on my IPad first but it did not help me with the Notes as when I go to turn on the sync in iCloud it asks me to create an @me.com account which is the same on my iPhone 4.

    How do I fix that?

    Cheers Taz

    Reply
  4. denise lennox says

    January 17, 2012 at 1:47 PM

    I am having the same problem.. no matter what I try I can’t sync notes from iPad to iPhone 4 s.

    Reply
  5. Trudy Hofley says

    January 21, 2012 at 2:04 PM

    I just tried the fix and cannot get the problem resolved. I’ll go in to the apple store and see if I can’t get them to resolve it. If they are successful, I’ll ask them to post the fix.

    Reply
  6. Andy says

    July 16, 2012 at 9:06 AM

    Any more news on syncing notes? I have iPad 3 iPhone 4 and Mac book pro

    Reply
  7. John says

    July 27, 2012 at 8:33 AM

    It seems to me that the Notes App allows for Notes to be shared when using iCloud, or not shared, i.e. private on the device. If you set iCloud as the default Notes account and create a NEW note, then it will be synced to all devices having Notes iCloud enabled. All EXISTING Notes that were created before iCloud came out supporting Notes cannot be synced unless you copy/paste them into a new Note with iCloud as the account.

    Reply
    • Lori says

      September 17, 2012 at 7:12 PM

      Yes… that’s correct! I’ve tried all of what’s stated above.
      It appears that 27 of my Notes are stored in Yahoo and the 1 newest Note is in the Cloud folder. Can’t get the iCloud to copy them. I think the only was would be to copy and paste

      Reply
    • pearcie17 says

      November 21, 2013 at 8:27 PM

      This definitely seems like the case. I just tested it and 100% agree. It’s a real shame it won’t happen automatically because I have about 100 separate notes 🙁

      Looks like a night of copy and pasting for me.

      Reply
  8. Pete says

    July 27, 2012 at 5:09 PM

    Worked perfect, thanks as it had me stumped for quite a while.

    Reply
  9. Marilyn says

    July 27, 2012 at 7:30 PM

    I cannot sync notes from iPod touch to iPad. Everything else will sync.

    Reply
  10. David says

    August 10, 2012 at 9:49 AM

    So Notes created on all of my devices under the “Notes/iCloud account” sync just fine. But how do I get Notes created on my iPad or iPhone accounts moved to my iCloud account without copy/pasting all of them?

    Thanks for any suggestions.

    Reply
  11. Debbie says

    August 16, 2012 at 12:49 PM

    My Iphone only showing a small number of my notes… I somehow delete some of my information (at least the information is not showing). How can I retrieve my notes from Icloud, or wherever the notes are

    Reply
  12. CebVa says

    September 20, 2012 at 5:05 AM

    This is cr*p. Something as simple as copying notes or syncing notes created before iCloud is impossible without buying an after-market program. What is Apple thinking? I have over 300 notes I want to sync and I am told the only way to do it is to email them one-at-a-time? Problem with Apple is they treat their devices like toys for texting and taking pictures instead of serious uses real adults might find helpful. This is probably my last Apple product.

    Reply
    • JPE says

      October 20, 2012 at 7:20 AM

      It works but only with notes appearing after the iCloud synchronisation has been setup on the ipda and iphone.

      The hard way consists of sending the notes to the iCloud account and copy and paste them into new notes on http://www.icloud.com.

      But an easier way consist of just adding e.g. a letter of the first line / title of each note either on the iphone or ipad. They will be parsed as new notes and get synched.

      Reply
      • Louise says

        November 22, 2012 at 1:20 PM

        This did not work for me:

        But an easier way consist of just adding e.g. a letter of the first line / title of each note either on the iphone or ipad. They will be parsed as new notes and get synched.

        Reply
    • pissed at apple says

      January 25, 2013 at 9:12 PM

      same issue. I’m switching to android. THIS IS STUPID! I can’t sync my notes to the cloud and have them appear on my iphone…

      WHY!?

      Reply
  13. Francis says

    December 6, 2012 at 10:16 AM

    This goes to show, Apple devices are no longer as easy to use as they once were. In this apparent concerted effort to force people to keep info in the cloud. i really hate it. And you know, even worse, now , you can’t sync notes directly from your phone to your mac. You have to sync notes on your iPhone through the internet to your Mac, both of which are consuming internet that you are somehow paying for. Apple was playful, now turning into a Monster. If Microsoft and hence windows fail, we’ll be in a really deep hole. I’ve really tried not to curse here.

    Reply
  14. Jim Perry says

    January 29, 2013 at 8:56 AM

    My problem with syncing iPad notes to iCloud came from the fact that I had already created a number of notes on my iPad before enabling iCloud sync. These notes were placed in my “On My iPad” Notes account which does not sync to the iCloud. The problem is examined closely here:

    http://iphone-contacts.over-blog.com/article-unable-to-sync-iphone-notes-to-icloud-112481240.html

    I understand it this way: that only newly-created notes on the iPad will get pushed to my iCloud account and not the notes from “On My iPad” notes account.

    Reply
  15. Bernie says

    March 4, 2013 at 7:59 AM

    I had to copy my notes (the ones I cared to “share”) into new notes on the “iCloud Account”.

    I did this in the devices. I have an iPhone 4s and iPad. I just upgraded to Mountain Lion (os x 10.8.2) and finally put an ounce of effort into resolving this convenience.

    Now the notes I copied and pasted, inside of each device, that I cared about, are now on all my devices.

    After checking that they were all there on iCloud, I just erased the (now) duplicate notes that were on the devices accounts.

    Thank you John from July 2012 for the info. I am sorry for any of you who have 300 notes etc, but it really won’t take you long when you get a rhythm going, although a silly problem for Apple to leave open. C’mon Apple!!!

    Bernie

    Reply
  16. Diane says

    August 4, 2013 at 9:00 PM

    Is this fixed yet?? I am thinking all this time the cloud was backing up my notes. Today i accidentally deleted A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE and went to look for it on icloud….NO NOTES THERE????
    How can i get them back?????

    Reply
  17. Gerald says

    October 29, 2013 at 6:51 AM

    I followed apple’s instructions above on my iPad but notes would still not sync. Then I tried the same procedure on my iPhone … deleted iCloud account and out it back on and then the syncing wored again. Good luck to everyone.

    Reply
  18. Jack Johnson says

    June 11, 2015 at 4:39 AM

    This has seriously wasted HOURS of my life and unnecessary concerns. I too am certainly not impressed that you cant sync previous existing notes.

    Reply
  19. TS says

    October 12, 2015 at 6:28 PM

    I have always had trouble with Notes syncing and occasionally had a note to disappear completely, but most often the problem has been with Apple’s sync method causing duplicate notes. That is, once I add to an existing note, I end up with two notes; the old one and the amended one. Then, 3 and 4 partial dupes. It has been occurring for me since the first days of Notes in MobileMe, then me.com and now iCloud. I get it fixed by laboriously eliminating the duplicates by hand, after carefully comparing them word by word, as the newest one isn’t always the one with every change. Then reset everything or even reinstall. There is absolutely no pattern to what causes this. At times, it has seemed to occur when I amended a note while on cellular, but lately it has occurred while on the same WiFi network using an Apple AirPort Extreme. I have done complete OS X and iOS clean restorations countless times, resets every possible way too numerous times to count and I’m still having problems. Yes, I realize that I’m being an idiot here for continuing to use the Apple Notes App. I blame it on stubbornness. Plus, it will work long enough to cause me to think the problem is over and then it reoccurs. Currently, running iOS 8 and Mavericks, I’m having duplicates in iOS, but not on OS X. The duplicates do show up on iCloud Notes. It is apparent that Apple has still not fixed their sync mechanism and I’m starting to think they are incapable of fixing it, after so long. Maybe they should ask Dropbox or Evernote for some advice? It seems to me that rather than a spokes and wheel type of mechanism, where all devices (spokes) sync back to the central server (wheel) that apparently Apple utilizes two wheels and spokes (iOS and OS X) connected by an axle (iCloud). I can’t figure out how else there could be all of these type of sync issues with iCloud. It isn’t just Notes for other folks. It seems from multiple user forums that there are always different sync issues affecting the sync of various data between the two OSs, but not so much within either OS. Why are they doing it this way? There is clearly a problem with the sync information getting down the axle and back quickly enough to prevent these duplicates. Apple should be embarrassed by this continued failure in something that myriad other startups have managed to figure out and do so relatively flawlessly across multiple platforms and devices and Apple can’t even get it right within their own ecosystem. Way to go guys! Steve Jobs was incensed about this (MobileMe not working right) before his death. If your own pride (iCloud engineers) won’t motivate you to fix this, won’t you do it for Steve, as I am sure this issue is preventing him from the peaceful rest he so deserves. And yes, I’m quite serious about that comment. As a customer, it is preventing me from the restful sleep I deserve, too!

    Reply

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