Notes App lagging after iOS 18 Update

tried the restart app 5 times which worked on iphone 14. Same trick, then re-installing notes on ipad pro fixed issue there. Also back to normal on Macbook. I was sceptical this would work, but it has for me. Still, I suspect Apple knew and decided to let users figure it out rather than invest in more development to avoid issue altogether.

I have some large notes, but the most annoying thing is the 12 second lag when I open a new blank note before it can actually type in it.

WTF? Why does Notes+iCloud care how many kb (and we are talking kb here) my other notes are when I create a new one? Somebody messed something up.

Concerning me, I have done so. To date I have not been given a solution, no. I hope that everyone having this problem has also opened a support case with Apple to kinda highlight this issue -as obviously not everybody suffers from this.

Had same issue (it was maddening) Just saw a fix in another post: Close/open the notes app 5-6 times…and tried it. FIXED! Thank goodness, use the notes feature a LOT. Many thanks to op Pomumm!

Updated to 18.1.1, but large notes (>130,000 characters) still slow down, it is impossible to work. There is no solution

And you know what, ios18.2 still doesn’t fix this glitch. Great !

iOS 18.2.1 is out and well....... My notes App lags opening single notes under 18.2.1 around 2 seconds each now, which was faster before. Cheers Apple. 

I agree

App is sticking and acting up

Gets even worse if I add a photo

The notes app froze after lifting the Apple pencil while drawing. The same is happening with other apps like Freeform and Miro. It's happening very frequently while drawing (using 2nd generation Pencil).

So I’m having the same problem, after closing and opening several times it worked, but. There’s something else, it only works if you view the notes as a list, if I turn it back into “view as gallery” the note app slows down again and it’s hard opening and creating new notes, so basically nothing was solved, it’s only a temporary solution.

None of the possible workarounds mentioned in this topic helped me. Well 18.1 is out a couple of days now and I can report something has changed, but the issue is surely not fixed. Individual notes still open and close way too sluggish.

I also started having notes lagging big time immediately after iOS 18.1 install (I went straight from 17.X).

I have a ton of notes, but I don’t think any are particularly large. I think nearly all of them are completely text, though some have one or two images.

this problem almost makes notes useless.

I have quit the app and reopened several times. I have not yet tried deleting and reinstalling.

I have some long notes, but they have nothing to do with handwriting. The problem has only existed since iOS 18.0, so it will have to do with some of the new features added with it. I also suspect the possible new formatting options. However, the problem is gone as long as you are not connected to the Internet (Cloud). It therefore seems to be mainly to do with the synchronisation.

I deleted the Notes app. Then reinstalled and allowed all my notes (1002) to load. It didn’t work for me.

Am I right in understanding that if you create a note of 130,000 characters on an iPhone (iOS 18.1), then there are no lags when editing it?

iOS version 18.0.1 .

I tried a few things, and none of them worked. I tried background app refresh, and leaving notes open for 30 min to help with indexing. Notes was still broken. I was forced to delete and reinstall -- but that left me feeling really insecure.

The delete-and-reinstall fix did work, though it was unsettling. Here are helpful tips.

(1) first sync notes to your mac or ipad and make sure they are there.

(2) make sure "Iphone Folder" is turned off in Notes settings. If it's on, move those into your icloud folder

(3) Two folders are virtual , "All Icloud" and "notes". These just list all notes and all unsorted notes respectively. They will sync from iCloud when you reinstall.

I had a good experience, and didn't notice any of my 5000+ notes missing. Images seemed to sync. My notes DB on iphone reduced in size after the reinstall.

Recommendation: Backup to another machine and then do uninstall-then-reinstall to restore the notes.