Notes app taking up 32GB of space, all notes are stored in iCloud! Anyone have advice?

[TotalMacMove]

Just noticed today that my notes is taking up a significant amount of space.. "on my mac" notes folder has been disabled for a few years so I'm not sure whats going on here.. All of my other devices have the same icloud notes on them and are showing under 100mb internal storage on them. Since I cant delete the notes app on mac, what other solution do I have? I checked the system library folder for notes and there is nothing significant in it..

 

[smoking monkey]

Did you try turning iCloud off and then back on for notes? Not sure it will help but you could then delete of the offending system all the notes then turn it back on so it can sync them all again. IF that’s how it works.

 

[TotalMacMove]

Did you try turning iCloud off and then back on for notes? Not sure it will help but you could then delete of the offending system all the notes then turn it back on so it can sync them all again. IF that’s how it works.

Yea i did try that, and it still shows the same when its off.

 

[gilby101]

I wouldn't worry about it. I have never found Apple's space stuff useful. If you want to know what files/folders are taking up space use Daisy Disk or OmniDiskSweeper(free) - they both analyse the disk in a folder-centric rather than application-centric way.

 

[Shark5150]

Make sure in Settings, choose Notes app then ensure its set to icloud and not on my ipad. That's my setup and works fine.

 

[TotalMacMove]

I wouldn't worry about it. I have never found Apple's space stuff useful. If you want to know what files/folders are taking up space use Daisy Disk or OmniDiskSweeper(free) - they both analyse the disk in a folder-centric rather than application-centric way.

Looks like I found it with Daisy Disk, But i have no idea what all this stuff is inside of the Cloudkit folder within notes. Have any ideas? The entire 32gb of “notes” is inside the cloudkit folder

 

[gilby101]

Looks like I found it with Daisy Disk, But i have no idea what all this stuff is inside of the Cloudkit folder within notes. Have any ideas? The entire 32gb of “notes” is inside the cloudkit folder

That confirms it really is to do with the Notes app. But, I don't know enough about the structure of "Containers" to make a firm recommendation. Taking up what @smoking monkey said:

Did you try turning iCloud off and then back on for notes? Not sure it will help but you could then delete of the offending system all the notes then turn it back on so it can sync them all again. IF that’s how it works.

My best thought is 1) turn iCloud off for Notes. 2) Delete the offending Container and empty trash. 3) Turn iCloud on for Notes.
1 and 3 are straight forward. Do you think 2 is safe?