all of my icloud notes disappeared from my notes app after agreeing to new terms and conditions just now

Question

all of my icloud notes disappeared from my notes app after agreeing to new terms and conditions just now

i received a notification regarding the new, updated icloud terms and conditions about an hour ago, which i have agreed to and accepted, as i have done so in the past without any trouble at all. however, not long after, i went to open my notes app and saw that every single one of my notes (i only use the icloud folder) have vanished. all of them gone; just completely disappeared with no explanation. i’ve had important notes in there from as far as six years ago. not only that, but i’d compiled hunderds of notes, all of them significant (including passwords to remember and other private information and data) and close to my heart. i’m absolutely devastated, and i have no idea what to do to get them back, and so i’m desperate for any kind of solution. thank you in advance. — i own an iphone 14, my ios version is 16.4.

iPhone 14, iOS 16

Posted on Nov 5, 2024 7:32 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Rylie926

Level 1

14 points

Nov 5, 2024 10:20 AM in response to lauraisagemini

Same here. Went to

Settings

Notes

Accounts

iCloud

—closed out and reopened notes

That restored them

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Answer 2

5-_

Level 1

18 points

Nov 5, 2024 12:07 PM in response to lauraisagemini

Me too. I can view notes in iCloud online. Still trying to work out how to transfer them back to my phone. I contacted Apple Support and they had no idea how to do that which is pretty frustrating.

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Answer 3

sfbio

Level 1

20 points

Nov 5, 2024 4:47 PM in response to lauraisagemini

Glad that the above has helped some but it didn’t work for me either.

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Answer 4

Nov 5, 2024 11:05 AM in response to Rylie926

didn’t work for me personally, but i’m glad it worked for you!

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Answer 5

Nov 5, 2024 3:47 PM in response to ceeee_ceee

Thanks, I turned it off and then right back on again, then opened the Folders app and the folders were downloading. I did not reboot first.

Looks like everything was restored.

I am furious that this happened! A lot of people are panicking over lost info.

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Answer 6

Nov 5, 2024 9:16 PM in response to Rylie926

I think "Close out" meant to "traverse back out of going to the depth described". Hit the backspace to leave the "Settings" app.

Because I think that when I exited out of "Settings", and then returned to the Notes app, the folders and files started reloading.

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Answer 7

Nov 5, 2024 3:03 PM in response to lauraisagemini

Mine too. In settings, notes, I added my iCloud account again, even though it showed my account was there. I rebooted my iPhone and the iCloud notes downloaded into my folder.

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Answer 8

Nov 6, 2024 6:39 AM in response to lauraisagemini

Same here just done the update, all notes are gone from my phone. Checked iCloud and they are all still there. Done the settings check which people suggested and also rebooted my phone but Notes were still at zero. Deleted the app, redownloaded it and the notes slowly started downloading to the phone.

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Answer 9

Nov 6, 2024 7:49 AM in response to lauraisagemini

hi guys — just thought i’d let everyone who stumbles upon this know that all of my notes came back! i’m pretty sure it was a software glitch, and i do believe/hope that in time it’ll be fixed for everyone else. i tried everything under the sun yesterday to fix the issue (turn my phone on and off, delete and then reinstall the notes app, sign in and out of icloud, make sure my notes were syncing to icloud, update to the latest ios version, i even talked to apple support twice to no avail, etc.) and none helped. however — and i don’t know if this is a universal solution — they all came back when i spent an extended amount of time writing a new note in my notes app! i just exited out when i was done writing it, and i found that they all appeared again, without exception. i think the amount of time it took me to write the note (about 30-35 minutes, if that helps) gave the old ones enough time to redownload!!

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Answer 10

RobLP

Level 1

8 points

Nov 5, 2024 1:57 PM in response to lauraisagemini

Notes disappeared some time after update to 17.7.1 on iPhone 11 Pro.

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Answer 11

Rylie926

Level 1

14 points

Nov 5, 2024 10:15 PM in response to catman0716

Yes, I just closed the settings app. Looks like other people are needing to reboot their phones in addition to this

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Answer 12

Nov 6, 2024 12:53 AM in response to lauraisagemini

I deleted the app then reinstalled it. Everything that was saved on iCloud downloaded back onto it after opening.

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Answer 13

TNBen

Level 1

8 points

Nov 6, 2024 12:48 PM in response to lauraisagemini

I had to go through this as well. I tried the solutions above and it didn’t work. The Apple service desk had me do the same things but he added the additional step of going to the mail in settings and in my case the google account and turning on Notes there. That solved it for me.

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