Is anyone else experiencing problems with their notes following the iOS 18 update? Until yesterday my notes app was working fine and I was able to use it like I’ve always done. Since yesterday on September 17, 2024, the app’s been completely unusable and you can’t click on your notes without the app freezing or crashing.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iPhone 7, iOS 15
I had the same problem on my iPhone 11 Pro Max since yesterday when I updated to IOS 18 and the notes app appeared to be unresponsive and none of my notes would open. I had one large notes file which I desperately needed.
I tried all the solutions online and non worked. This included locking the note and applying a password. No good.
Some people suggested turning off syncing to iCloud but I never was using iCloud. I tried enabling and then disabling but that didn’t work. I tried logging out of iCloud then restarting the phone and logging back in to no avail.
I realised that even though the notes app appeared to be frozen some functionality was still working in that I was able to move the notes file to and from iCloud and between folders locally on the iPhone.
I realised that I could create a brand new test note file and this worked perfectly and would open and close and could be edited perfectly normally as long I kept away from my existing file. Having created a new file I disabled iCloud syncing and turned off 4G mobile data and clicked on my existing note and just left the app open apparently hung but after about twenty minutes it finally opened complete with all my data much to my relief.
I immediately copied all the text into an email that I sent to myself as a backup.
Problem Solved.
Notes now works fine as it did before the update. Just to be sure as I am an IT engineer I decided to delete my notes from both iPhone and iCloud and removed and reinstalled the notes app from the App Store to have a clean start recreating a new note from the data I copied out of the old file.
Everything now back to normal with no data loss but I really don’t like the new layout of IOS 18 and it’s caused a major headache with notes.
Hope that helps.
Good luck.
I usually use the Notes App to learn French on my iPhone 12 Pro.
After getting my iPhone 16 today, when I read the articles which I copied to the Notes app, it could not operated properly. I used the function "look up" for definition a lot, and it should not be a big deal. But now the Notes app on my iPhone 16, which runs iOS 18, crashes out every two times I "look up" the vocabularies.
Wish the next update will fix this problem.
DANIELKW98 wrote:
SAME PROBLEM NOTES APP EITHER DOENST OPEN FREEZES WHEN. IT DOES CRASHES OR IS VERY LAGGY AND SLOW EVEN AFTER TODAYS LATEST UPDATE
You can let Apple know your concerns here:
You may also want to let them know about the problems you're having with your keyboard being stuck on caps lock.
Mine has been unusable across all my devices, iPhone 15 Pro Max and new IPad 13. Started with iOS 18 and persists. I have tried all the same things others have tried, turning off sync, deleting all notes, deleting the app, turned off handoff, tried it in airplane mode. Tried small notes, tried new notes. No matter what, my notes apps will crash in a minute and a half or less. The has been a major blow to my work.
I have the same problem when trying to move handwriting, either with the pencil tool or when you highlight using your finger. I thought the feature to hold a word to move the sentence its in when there's extra space very helpful, but I only used it twice and every time I continuously try the app crashes. Other than crashes the app is very slow, it takes a while to register handwriting and for the handwriting refine feature it eventually gives up if you've wrote too much.
iPad Air 4th Generation
Apple Pencil 2nd Generation
Edit: Forgot to mention that using notes also drains my iPads battery can makes it a little hot. I can't see battery health on iPad, but I've only owned it for about three years and it's never been hot like this, even when using notes like I have before the update.
Notes is unusable on both my phone and iPad since installing iOS 18.0.0 and then 18.1
Nothing is accessible but folder names.
I powered off and rebooted both units.
I even deleted and reinstalled the app on my iPad. Same thing. I can only read the folder names.
This is 😔 sad
I decided to contact support yesterday hoping it would be helpful, it was a COMPLETE waste of my time! They had me do all the things suggested in this thread (which I had already tried). They then told me to make sure and keep my phone updated to the latest software (which is what caused this problem for me in the first place 😡) and to be patient. I asked if that meant they were not going to solve my issue as I have a lot of important information I needed to access and they told me their engineers were working on this problem 24/7 and that there would be an update at some point. So no solution, no real time frame given and just a bunch of time on my Saturday wasted. I then got a survey about my experience and told them how utterly useless and frustrating that experience was. So they do know there is a problem but don’t know how to fix it.
My iPad updated yesterday and had the same issue, deleted it all, unsynced it reinstalled seemed to work again yesterday but back the not working this morning. As someone who uses my notes all the time this is so fustrating as can’t click on anything!
FYI .. it crashes on my iPad as well as my iPhone.
According to Support, they will not have a patch for it for another month.
One month is a long time for us not using Notes. Has anyone heard when will the patch be available?
Thanks
The solution I found was to change the file names of the large files in iCloud
Figured out how to do it. I can access and edit notes on iCloud website but it doesn’t allow me to edit them from the app.
stepheytan23 wrote: "...Apple should resolve this asap..."
Let Aople know what they should resolve asap here:
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sammydowner33 ~ What model of iPhone do you have?...
Settings > General > About > Model Name
And what version of iOS is it running?...
Settings > General > About > iOS Version
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I am having this problem on my iPad (M4 Pro). I’ve tried restarting the app and rebooting my device and it’s still frozen and stuck on the last note I used. However, the notes app on my iPhone (13 Pro) is working fine.
I’m having the same issues, especially with larger notes. With smaller notes it lets me open them, but after I open one note and then try to open another one it just freezes and won’t even register me touching the screen. I have a 14 plus, updated this morning.
I let my phone power down and powered it back up through my Mac Air it took a bit. When the phone powered on all the apps were restored and I could use the phone again without any messages from Apple that this phone is lost or stolen. And being able to use the touch screen had been restored too.
Notes app is crashing after iOS 18 update on my iPhone
