iCloud Notes vs Notes on iPhone

Bonjour Charo1973,

Here is what I like about local backups:

• I don’t need an Internet connection to restore my iPhone (or even to back it up.)
• Restoring a backup from iCloud can be slow from what I gather (I’ve never tried, though.)
• My iPhone backups are themselves backed up because I back up my Mac using Time Machine.
• Local backups do not take storage space on iCloud which, depending on your iCloud+ plan, could be a factor to take into account.

If you want to be extra prepared, do an iCloud backup and a local backups. You’d then have 2 sources of backups to restore from.

Yes, turning off Notes in Settings > [your name] > iCloud will only remove the notes stored on iCloud. The notes stored in the "On My iPhone" location will not be impacted.

Also, the notes stored in the "On My iPhone" location are part of your backup (iCloud or on your computer, depending on which method you use.)

When it comes to iCloud and "On My iPhone", or what data is backed up when using iCloud synchronization, nothing has changed between iOS 15 and iOS 18.

To know what's backed up by iCloud, Apple has this article that states:

iCloud backups include all the information and settings stored on your device that don't already sync to iCloud.

iCloud backups don't include:

• • Data that you already store and sync in iCloud, like Contacts, Calendars, and Notes
  • Photos, if you turned on iCloud Photos
  • iMessages, text (SMS) and multimedia (MMS) messages, if you sync messages with iCloud 
  • Data stored in other cloud services, like Gmail and Exchange mail
  • Apple Mail data
  • Apple Pay information and settings
  • Face ID or Touch ID settings
  • iCloud Music Library and App Store content
  • Offline maps

Personally, I prefer backing up on my computer. This method allows to archive backups and thus keep several different versions of the backups. Note that the archiving is not automatic; you have to do it "manually."