I turned on iCloud sync for notes on my iPad when I realized it wasn't on. All of my iPhone notes showed up on my iPad, but my iPad notes DISAPPEARED. They are GONE. HELP!
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iPad, iPadOS 16
I encountered this same issue and fortunately was able to get (most) of my notes back because my most recent iCloud backup for the iPad was prior to when I turned on iCloud Sync for notes.
Issue:
I created new notes on my iPad while the "Sync this iPad" toggle for Notes within Apps using iCloud was off. When I switched on the toggle, all the notes created on my iPad were deleted and replaced by the notes from my iPhone/in iCloud.
APPLE NEEDS TO FIND A SOLUTION FOR THIS - or at the very least provide a warning that the newly created notes could be deleted.
Solution:
Next,
No, that is not correct. I had notes on my iPhone. When I got a new iPad, I created notes on the iPad. When I realized iCloud sync was not turned on for notes on the iPad, I turned it on. At that time, all of the existing iPhone notes populated on the iPad, and the iPad notes disappeared. The notes were definitely not in a third-party app. I watched them disappear.
i have the same problem and this is not helping at all, is there actually a solution? i mean this is absurd.......all i did is turn on the sync, its supposed to add the notes that are on iCloud to my existing ones instead of making all my current notes on iPad vanish out of air.....(n when i turn it on it doesn't even have a confirm/warning button for this) please fix this????
This happen to me 5 minutes ago and its my class notes that disappear and I have nothing to study for the coming up exams in 3 days. I have no any other backup too. Please does anyone know how to recover them? All I wanted to create a back up of my notes in iPad in my iPhone. This is just absurd.
None of the links you provided answered the problem. The Notes were not in any deleted notes. The problem is that Apple has a bug. Instead of placing the Notes into deleted notes when you sync or turn on iCloud, Apple simply deletes all the notes from the device and then downloads the notes from iCloud. As others also stated, there is no warning that this would occur. Another Apple bug is that when you download your device backup from iCloud into a new device that was purchased, you expect your settings to remain unchanged. In this case, Apple changed the settings for Notes from using iCloud syncing to not using it. This is what caused the initial problem. I and others believed we were syncing because that is how we were using Notes. Nothing changed except that we changed devices, and that Apple decided to introduce not one, buy two bugs.
None of the links you provided answered the problem. The Notes were not in any deleted notes. The problem is that Apple has a bug. Instead of placing the Notes into deleted notes when you sync or turn on iCloud, Apple simply deletes all the notes from the device and then downloads the notes from iCloud. As others also stated, there is no warning that this would occur. Another Apple bug is that when you download your device backup from iCloud into a new device that was purchased, you expect your settings to remain unchanged. In this case, Apple changed the settings for Notes from using iCloud syncing to not using it. This is what caused the initial problem. I and others believed we were syncing because that is how we were using Notes. Nothing changed except that we changed devices, and that Apple decided to introduce not one, buy two bugs.
Hey so what your going to do is your going to have to rest the device and choose from one of the previous backups when re setting up the device I just had 5 versions of back up praise God thought I lost everything years of work
This just happened to my daughter - May 2025... apparently this is not fixed at all and there is absolutely no way to recover the written over notes. Sync is not sync at all. it is overwrite with other location's information... iPhone notes all gone and all that was left was the notes that were already on the cloud from her ipad. So no way to get those notes on the cloud either apparently... Apple needs to fix the issues and stop focusing on new emojis and other useless crap that nobody wants, needs, or even asked for.
This just happened to me. Lost all my iPad notes I have ever taken, including notes I need to study for an upcoming test. Unbelievable, this issue is over two years old and apple can’t resolve a problem that has already been solved countless times across other platforms. Only solution that seems to have some merit is factory resetting your iPad and using an iCloud backup, but that involves relying on iCloud to restore deleted data, which this bug shows is not a good idea. Another reason to switch to android smh.
Recently deleted was the first place I checked for the missing notes. No, they are simply gone. I watched in real time as the iPhone notes populated and the iPad notes disappeared.
The exact same thing happened to me this morning..... GOD I hope there is a fix for this!!!
I just had the issue on my iPad mini,
I scanned documents on my IPad notes app and turned on sync, just see all the notes I created on the IPad before the sync disappeared!!! it seems this bug has not been fixed and it is annoying. Please how do I get my notes with scanned documents back??
I just had the issue on my iPad mini,
I scanned documents on my IPad notes app and turned on sync, just see all the notes I created on the IPad before the sync disappeared!!! it seems this bug has not been fixed and it is annoying. Please how do I get my notes with scanned documents back??
I am having the same problem. All of the notes I took in my classes are gone. There is no recently deleted folder and I cannot find the notes that I took prior to syncing. Has anyone found a solution to this?
It means that they recover your notes doing something in the system (I don't really know how it actually works) but they retrieve your notes. They do something and then you can get your notes again in your deleted folder.
Has anyone found a solution to this? I spent half a day writing notes on my iPad that were deleted with no warning when I decided to turn sync on. This is so unfair; I lost all that time and work, and I'm so devastated. Please post a solution if/when you find one :(
How to retrieve missing iPad notes after iCloud Sync
