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How to Fix iPhone Notes Disappearing After Accepting New iCloud Terms

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Apple in September updated its iCloud terms and conditions with some minor changes, and this week it has been notifying iPhone users that they must accept the revised terms in order to continue using iCloud. Unfortunately, after accepting the new terms, some iPhone users have seen all of their notes disappear in the Notes app.

iOS-18-Notes-Feature.jpg

While some users have turned to social media to justifiably panic about all of their notes being gone, thankfully the issue can be fixed by following the steps below.

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Tap on your name at the top (aka your Apple Account settings).
  3. Tap on iCloud.
  4. Tap on Notes.
  5. Turn on "Sync this iPhone" (green = on). If it is already on, turn it off and on again.
  6. In the Notes app, wait several minutes for your notes to be restored from iCloud.

We began monitoring this issue earlier this week, but it is unclear what the underlying cause is. Apple did not respond to our request for comment.

Article Link: How to Fix iPhone Notes Disappearing After Accepting New iCloud Terms
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/11/07/how-to-fix-iphone-notes-disappearing/
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My iCloud mailbox disappeared in the Mail app for ~two hours as well. 😬

The account was still listed in Settings > Apps > Mail > Mail accounts, but wasn't clickable.
 
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What will those who use Notes as digital diary or reminder feel when they see what they saved are gone?
 
MacRumors said:


Apple in September updated its iCloud terms and conditions with some minor changes, and this week it has been notifying iPhone users that they must accept the revised terms in order to continue using iCloud. Unfortunately, after accepting the new terms, some iPhone users have seen all of their notes disappear in the Notes app.

iOS-18-Notes-Feature.jpg

While some users have turned to social media to panic about all of their notes being gone, thankfully the issue can be fixed by following the steps below.

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Tap on your name at the top (aka your Apple Account settings).
  3. Tap on iCloud.
  4. Tap on Notes.
  5. Turn on "Sync this iPhone" (green = on). If it is already on, turn it off and on again.
  6. In the Notes app, wait several minutes for your notes to be restored from iCloud.

We began monitoring this issue earlier this week, but it is unclear what the underlying cause is. Apple did not respond to our request for comment.

Article Link: How to Fix iPhone Notes Disappearing After Accepting New iCloud Terms
Click to expand...
If this happens, can we turn off the sync after it’s restored?
 
would simply making a new note make all the others come back?

i heard that this was a simpler way to fix it.

but more concerning is apple's silence on the matter.

why the silence?

refusal to acknowledge the bug, when it is blatantly obvious to the rest of the internet?

well as big as apple is, the internet is bigger!

and not even helping people with a workaround to fix it, leaving it up to sites like macrumors to provide the workaround?

that’s very poor form on apple's part
 
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It just works! I've been having an issue with my Messages in iCloud not regularly syncing up. Seems to only sync overnight when my phone is on a charger (around 3am). Not sure if it was one of the recent set of updates or just the new releases in general, but it used to work almost instantly anytime a change was made.
 
I dumped iCloud notes a while ago when my notes started duplicating when I edited them. Switched to Simplenote and I’ve been very happy. It syncs perfectly.
 
I accepted the terms without reviewing and it immediately deleted my me.com and icloud.com email addresses. I still have my mac.com account and alias email addresses.
 
I would freak out if Notes and Mail are gone! I have TM backup but does that restore them if Apple iCloud system suddenly deletes them all?
 
That would be a disaster for most people! I know it’s rare but shows the risk of cloud computing.

Can you still create notes on your mac locally? And if so how do you back them up?
 
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coffeemilktea said:
It's not an elegant fix, but I've found it helpful to back notes up on Google Keep also, which has the nice benefit of being cross-platform (for people who want access to those notes on Windows, Linux, Android, etc).
Click to expand...
Huh. I never knew that was an option but after Googling it, seems pretty straightforward. Thanks!
 
"While some users have turned to social media to panic about all of their notes being gone, thankfully the issue can be fixed by following the steps below."

This is a weirdly constructed sentence, and is mildly insulting. Are we to conclude that there is no justification for panic on social media when Apple has been silent on the issue? I keep all my car maintenance records in Notes and would not be happy to lose them.

Not a big deal, just struck me as odd as I read it.
 
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mystery hill said:
There is no way to batch export all notes on iPhone and iPad to a folder on the device, or to an external drive.

You have to completely depend on iCloud and hope that a bug doesn’t delete all your notes.
Click to expand...
Not sure what other apps can do this, but I use DEVONthink and you can batch import all your notes.
 
I get this all the time. It all reappears when I close and open the sidebar (folder list) by clicking the toolbar icon twice. hth.
 
mystery hill said:
There is no way to batch export all notes on iPhone and iPad to a folder on the device, or to an external drive.
Click to expand...
There is on iPad, sort of. You can select all notes by swiping (in Select Notes mode), and then drag the batch as a whole to a folder in the Files app, for example in split view (multitasking). If you use multiple folders, you can still do it in one go from within the All iCloud folder (at the cost of losing your folder structure). It would be easier if Apple provided a Select All option and then a Copy (and Paste) option, and also allowed selecting folders.
 
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