Notes app is crashing after iOS 18 update on my iPhone

Just an update to my previous post:

Unsyncing and resyncing did nothing. It made it worse because it jumbled up my notes out of their assigned folders. That was another few hours trying to sort a new mess.

Still lags and freezes every 2 seconds, making it unsuable.

Best thing to do is to report to Apple Support. I’ve just done so and shared this forum with them as so many people are affected.

The support person said they’ll pass this info and the forum link onto a specialist to look at who will contact me to discuss in a few days.

Also they said once the report from Apple Support is validated by their engineers, it’s usually included in the next ios update.

At least it’s visible to Apple Support as a few people have started reporting. Please report as that’s the only way the issue will be put to the attention of Apple.

The Notes App works fine on my iPhone 16 Pro Max (I have 864 notes) but not on my son’s iPhone 16 Pro Max (he has over 160,000 notes!). I think the problem may be with the amount of notes/size. Hopefully the fix is coming soon.

Completely unusable for me on iPad Pro. I'm on iOS 18.0.1. I tried absolutely everything! I tried deleting the app and reinstalling, restarting the iPad, checking to see if there is an update, disconnected iCloud, and used the "on my iPad account," and yet nothing works. Nothing. Just constantly keeps crashing not matter what I do.

I had the same issue. I should also add that I am a tech dummy. I turned my phone off for 5 mins and then turned it back on. I still had the same issue where my notes would not allow me to click on them and open then. Then I clicked on the "circle with the 3 dots" icon in the top right corner of the screen and everything started working properly with my notes again. I hope this helps!

I changed some folders around. Someone mentioned size of files changing the name.

i didn’t find a way to do that but I did organize some folders and deleted some random ones. Made a smart one but haven’t used it. I’m wondering if this is meant more for 16? Does anyone have 16?

Yes though this should addresses

Ok. I think I have a work around if the other suggestions didn’t work (like shutting iCloud off and re syncing or changing the name of the offending notes that freeze up the app) For me it was two notes that jammed up the app. They were very long. I went on the iCloud website and I tried the name change but it didn’t work. The app still froze when I tried to open them. So I decided to eliminate those two notes by cutting and pasting into a new note. The way I did this was to select all (long tap) on the keyboard of the iPad there’s a scissor, I tapped that then went to the Notes App (amazingly there is no cut, copy and paste menu in the website when you select on an iPad) Then I pasted it in a new note. Tapped Done. Deleted the old one on the Website. Now it opens fine. Hopefully this is a good fix and not something that’ll rear its ugly head again. I feel like it’s a syncing issue.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I followed your instructions and can now access my notes! Typing in my entries, though, is a pain. Lagging badly. I finish a sentence & have to wait for the entry to be completed! At least, I can get into it now!

I don’t know the name of the person who said to turn off cloud sync & cellular data & just leave the noes open for a bit. I did that & I don’t think it was more than 5 minutes when I glanced at my phone & my notes that previously wouldn’t open were right there! When I started to add a notation, I could, but the typing couldn’t keep up with my slow-typing finger! That’s another glitch, but I can live with that! Anyhow, to the techie who made that suggestion, THANK YOU!

Apple Support says engineers are aware of the issue and are working on a fix. The advice was to look out for an update, no timeframe, no reassurance it would even be on the next update. The whole thing is a joke!

They said other than doing:

a) unsyncing, deleting the notes app, reinstalling and the resyncing

b) restoring to factory settings, then uploading a back up

There is nothing else they can do and to just await the potential update. It leaves alot of people stuck with an unusable notes app, which so many of us use on the daily with alot of important information on there.

Riduclous and incredibly frustrating. It’s been over a month since ios 18 came out, 18.1 didn’t even have any fixes. Absolute joke.

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

Everything is wrong. My old phone has thr notes on it. It did not get anything higher than 16 upgrade. At Apple Store they managed to make everthing work but and they puti in iOS 18

when I wen to notes two days later they were gone. They are in the cloud in my ipad and ne phone 16 but when I talked to apple care thry said I did not update 17.8 0r somrhting. They di it on the phone so I do not know where 18 went. I saw it on phone in Apple Store. Now everhting is so confused that I cannot use anything. I cannot back up becasue the 1phone 8 does not have cel anymore. And I have always been using the old phones as alarms and music. I have two internet’s so I made sure that all were on same one. Apple care told me there was aproblem. Basically they cannot get it out of the cloud to my devices and the one that has the notes 8 plus cannot put them on besue it has no cell service. So nothing is working right.

Apple Notes app is crashing a lot and If we write a lot with drawings and handwritten notes on the iPad it is very laggy and takes a lot of time to sync on Mac. I expect it to be instantaneous while presenting with the client .

Please fix this Notes crashing and lagging issue. Its very painful for APPLE Users.

Please take this as priority over any OS updates. Please test with 8 hours of continuous ipad notes taking from the college lecture you can understand the pain while writing and catching up with professor. Many students are shifted to other third party apps due to this issue.

Even with the IOS 18.1 update Apple Note is still broken. I see this is a known issue, what is Apple waiting for ?

All notes that are a little too long start to slow down a lot when typing. Using Apple Note heats up the phone and uses up the battery quickly.

I can't work properly any more and I urgently need to fix this problem. What is Apple doing ?

Woo hoo! Worked for me. I thought of doing this first, but freaked out when I saw the message about everything being deleted everywhere. I was ready to start manually typing everything back in. Thanks for being a guinea pig for the greater good!

Here’s a solution that what worked for me. Hope this helps! If your larger notes are causing the notes app to crash after iOS 18.1.1 update try this.

Step 1. Open settings and go to iCloud and unsync your phone.

Step 2. ( make sure you’ve done the first step otherwise you’ll delete notes from iCloud) delete your notes from your iphone. Then Delete the notes app from your iPhone.

Step 3: Wait 5 mins. Then Reinstall the notes app from app store. Resync your iCloud notes with your iPhone and wait till your notes have redownloaded to your phone. Once finished your notes should work normally. ✌️

And suddenly, I can access my large notes again! No software update on my end, perhaps it was a problem with iCloud? What gives, Apple?