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.
Since an update about 3 months ago my notes is crashing. I called Apple support and they helped me through a rep hour process to re-sync to the cloud. The notes is still crashing?
On iPad OS I started out with very similar issues but my machine 11 inch m2 was next to my 10.2 inch machine which was updated properly (yea) and worked itself out over the next 24 hours not sure what I did but Apple must have built into their programming this type of help and backed up and updated my 11 inch air so it would appropriately download IOS 18. Previous attempts at recent backups and IPad OS 18 downloads were unsuccessful on my 11 inch air m2 most likely because I needed to pay closer attention to what was going on. Any way iPads work but IPhone is frozen and needs help beyond my ability. Probably a software issue, but may have been caused by not backing up properly and waiting patiently so as we say in the IT world arrg! I think what I am trying to convey is I could have saved a whole lot of issues by reading through the documentation first, properly backing up my devices and downloading the new IOS or OS afterwards. Very sorry for the novel. It may seem like a great deal to remember but it can save more time in the long run.
I just wanted to update my situation. It seems to have fixed itself over night. I’m thinking the app needed to re sync with iCloud maybe. Whatever happened it’s working fine now. Hopefully I just didn’t jinx myself 🤭
This update is horrendus for notes, it was working fine before the update to ios18. I’m a huge user of notes and have thousands on icloud. It’s unsuable now, notes freezes, glitches, lags and I can’t access important documents. This is infuriating. I’ve unsynced and trying to re-sync my notes to see if that does anything, and the process is taking forever to re-sync.
Such a nasty update for notes.
Hi Metis, I just replied to you but it seems my post is lost or at least I can’t see it, so I’ll try again.
Thank you so much for the reassurances. You’re right. I followed the steps and eventually all my notes came back!
It doesn’t solve the problem: when I first open Notes, my iPad screen is blank except for two tiny arrows in the upper left screen. I tap on those and then get a screen saying no notes. But there’s an icon in the upper left corner so I tap on that and then my Notes folder page appears. Before the iOS 18 update Notes automatically opened up the actual Note I was previously working/writing in. I did update to iOS 18.1 today - didn’t make a difference.
Same problem App freezes on large notes mainly on iPhone BUT I also noted on Mac when typing characters jump all over the place and lines g out and down. VERY disappointed as have grown to depend for work files and did NOT expect this from APPLE.
IS there ANYONE from Apple looking at these numerous complaints and actioning?? Its been several months since the IOS18 trial version was out and 1 months since the official upgrade and the issue should have been FIXED - UNACCEPTABLE and in fact commercially SHAMEFUL - Not the Apple we know
What are you doing about it?
Does anyone know at the closest substitute to Notes?
Yep. Updated yesterday and notes app freezes and won’t let me open any at all. Before the update, it worked without issue. I did the cloud thing and restarted my phone and still nothing. This new update is horrible. I also hate the way they changed the apple photos app. Terrible! Thanks a lot, Apple! 👎🏻
After the latest iOS update, my notes app will only one part of my notes. When I try to open one I call “journal”, nothing happens & then I can’t even go back to the previous screen! Have to close the app &/or turn off my phone & restart it! What the heck!! I don’t want to lose all I have recorded over the past few years & I don’t want to use the journal app! This was working fine until I updated a couple of nights ago!
anjlee25 wrote:
Riduclous and incredibly frustrating. It’s been over a month since ios 18 came out, 18.1 didn’t even have any fixes.
Do you mean iOS 18.1? Or iOS 18.0.1? iOS 18.1 was only released within the last hour or so.
Notes crashes every few seconds. I have plenty of space in my phone. My iCloud is full, but I don’t want to pay more money. Is Apple forcing us to pay for more iCloud to be able to use Notes?
Crazy thing is, all Microsoft apps work fine with OneDrive, so I’ve switched to using those to collaborate on lists, notes, etc. with my family.
Seems like I might as well save money and buy an Android next time if Apple can’t keep basic things working like Notes. #smh
iOS 18.0.1, iPhone 14 Plus
It is really annoying and even waited until 18.1 update but not even that helped, İ guess İ dont use Notes anymore and will look for a more reliable app, incredible that apple is not doing something about it
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.
heatherfrozenFB wrote: "...the 1phone 8 does not have cel anymore..."
heatherfrozenFB ~ One possible explanation for not connecting with cell tower signals is a weak, aging battery. So...
Does your iPhone 8 still have its original battery?
And what's the Maximum Capacity % here?...
Settings > Battery > Battery Health
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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.
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!
Notes app is crashing after iOS 18 update on my iPhone
