Notes App: iCloud Turned Off but On This Phone Not Saved

The return of your iCloud notes happens because turning off the iCloud switch on your device only disconnects the phone from the cloud; it does not delete the data stored on Apple’s servers. Even if you never upgraded your plan, those old notes remained safe in the cloud. When you restored your phone from the backup, the device likely logged back into your Apple ID, re-established the connection, and immediately downloaded the existing notes from the server.

Regarding your missing "On My iPhone" notes, since they are local files, they should have been included in your computer backup. Their disappearance is likely due to a settings reset or a display glitch rather than data loss. First, navigate to Settings > Notes and ensure the toggle for "On My iPhone" Account is turned on; sometimes a restore disables this feature, hiding the notes that are actually there. If enabling that setting does not bring them back, the notes are likely trapped inside the backup file but failing to index on the phone.

To recover them without risking further data loss, do not restore the backup to your phone again. Instead, use a backup extractor tool (such as iMazing or iPhone Backup Extractor) on your computer. These programs allow you to open the backup file directly and view the raw database. If the notes were successfully saved to your computer before the restore, you will be able to see them within the software and export them as text or PDF files. This is the most reliable way to retrieve the data when the iPhone interface fails to display it.

Since your phone was bricked multiple times by macOS 26.2, it is highly likely that your backup files were either corrupted during the system crashes or saved in a non-standard location that the extractor tool is unable to scan. Because you have already restored the device twice, the local "On My iPhone" notes may not have been captured in the specific backup you are currently attempting to access. To verify if a valid backup from the 8th actually exists, you should manually check your Mac by opening Finder, selecting your iPhone in the sidebar, and clicking Manage Backups. If a backup from the 8th appears in that list, right-click it and select "Show in Finder" to confirm the file's presence; if it is missing, those local notes were likely never successfully saved before the phone bricked.

The error message stating that the software "cannot find any iOS backups" often stems from permission restrictions or altered backup paths in recent macOS versions. To resolve this, ensure you have granted Full Disk Access to your backup extractor tool within the Mac's System Settings > Privacy & Security. If the software still fails to detect anything, it is possible that the backup process was interrupted by the same 26.2 system errors that caused the initial bricking, resulting in an incomplete or "invisible" file that the operating system no longer recognizes as a valid restore point.

Since you mentioned seeing folders from the past 7 and 30 days, these remains your most viable chance for recovery. If these folders are visible in the Notes app but appear empty, the database indexing is likely broken due to the recent restores. You can attempt to fix this by keeping your phone connected to a charger and Wi-Fi while leaving the Notes app open for several hours, which allows the system to rebuild the links to those local folders. Additionally, try using the Search bar at the top of the Notes app to look for specific keywords; sometimes the search index can locate "hidden" notes even when the folder view fails to display them.

If the notes are not found in those folders and a computer backup from the 8th cannot be located, your final option is to check the Recently Deleted folder within the Notes app. Moving a large volume of data between "iCloud" and "On My iPhone" can occasionally trigger sync conflicts that cause accidental deletions. Because "On My iPhone" notes are not stored on Apple's servers, they can only be retrieved if you find a valid, uncorrupted backup file on your Mac or a secondary computer. If you cannot find them, avoid toggling any sync settings or signing out of your account, as this could reset the current recovery progress.