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Unable to open any of my saved notes in Notes app after Sequoia update

Hello,


Since I updated my 2020 MacBook Air to macOS Sequoia, the Notes app has not been functioning properly. I am unable to open any of my saved notes; I click on them, but nothing happens. I have restarted both my laptop and the app several times, but the issue persists. I would appreciate any guidance on how to resolve this problem.


Thank you very much.



[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 15.0

Posted on Sep 24, 2024 2:27 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 20, 2024 11:01 PM

At some point, Notes stopped displaying a preview of the selected note. I am not able to display it in the third column - only by double-clicking in a separate window...

27 replies

Nov 2, 2024 9:32 AM in response to rmv7

I've just fixed my Notes after days of being on forums & chatroom, I found this on Reddit & it worked!


Credit to: Commercial-Map-7329

I had Notes open on Mac, go to gallery view. Close Notes.

Then go to the iPhone, create a new note, add something in the new note, then go back to Mac, click on the Notes icon (this should trigger hands off action and continue the Notes on the Mac).

This is how I see the Content Panel again on the Mac.

Sep 28, 2024 8:24 AM in response to rmv7

I seem to have found a little workaround at least.

I have this same problem. With or without VPN, with or without the login settings as mentioned by the earlier replyer.

What I have now found is that if I choose galery view instead of list view (see screenprint), I get to see at least the titles of my notes.


I can then doubleclick on a note, and then it opens! And it also syncs with iCloud.


It's the list view that seems completely broken. Galery isn't perfect at all either but at least I can see the titles and doubleclick them.


And: if all else fails, you could also log into the web version via Apple's icloud url - for as long as Apple hasn't fixed this annoying bug. So you can at least continue writing your notes.



Oct 29, 2024 5:16 PM in response to rmv7

Just updated, same problem, was on the phone with apple for a while and they told me I was going to have to backup, wipe, reload sequoia. I had tried unsyncing notes, rebooting computer, etc. Instead, found a fix on reddit!

Change notes to gallery view, quit out, restart computer, then reopen notes, and change from gallery to list! Fixed!

Nov 1, 2024 5:55 AM in response to rmv7

I am still experiencing the same issue. My notes populate, but the search function does not work at all on my mackbook pro (but works fine on my iphone) so this is directly related to the new IOS and I would really *love* for the apple developers to fix this glitch. So far, I have tried:


  • Logging out of my apple ID/icloud account and logging back in
  • Logging out, shutting down and restarting and then logging back in to icloud
  • Toggling between list and gallery views
  • Setting up a new account and testing new lists (works!, but unhelpful)
  • Trolling apple forums and reddit for solutions - trying various ones, nothing s=works
  • Spending an hour on with apple support wherein we tried different versions of above netting the same result. Their advice, was to wipe my computer and and only transfer over the things I'm sure I want to keep to a new user account. Who has time for that? How can that be the solution?


For context, I have no VPN or antivirus software installed. All I did was have a n automatic update enabled which transitioned me to Sequoia and now my notes is not functioning properly.


Having dug into this issue deeper than I'd like, it seems this has been perssistant since 2023 and is still not fixed. We need to Upvote and contact apple support to complain so this issue gets more attention- hopefully if enough people complain with this problem there will be a fix released in the next software update.


Dear god, Apple.... PLEASE Help!


Sep 24, 2024 6:09 AM in response to rmv7

My M1 iMac has no problems with Notes since the upgrade. If you restart in safe mode, because it doesn't load any login items you are able to see if Notes is being affected by a login item. You can check your login items in System Settings (just search for it) and turn them off one at a time with a restart in between.

Oct 12, 2024 4:31 AM in response to rmv7

I had an issue, whereby notes opened, but did not show the third column window for the single note. I switched to Gallery view, then it crashed.

I saw that I have had LibreOffice open and closed it.


Anyway now the app "notes" workes as normal....


> But it could be also, that as I just turned the Apple Mac on, that iCloud was syncing notes....

(I work on notes also an an iPad and quite intense...)



My mac is Apple M1 Max, OsX 15.0.1

Nov 17, 2024 5:10 AM in response to rmv7

After updating my M1 MacBook Pro to Sequoia 15.1, Notes crashed straight away when started (including in Safe Mode). I've tried all suggestions here, but this worked for me. Move the following file to your desktop (just in case), reboot, and launch Notes. If that fixes your issue you can delete the moved file.


  • /Users/xxxxxxxxxxxx/Library/Containers/Notes/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Notes.plist


Note: three Data folders are shown in my Containers folder, this was the first one in the list

Nov 1, 2024 3:11 AM in response to StuckInTheOH

StuckInTheOH wrote: "...But Apple, listen. Double-clicking to open a full new window for my notes is very not user friendly. Please bring back the previous functionality, or let us know how to resolve this issue."

StuckInTheOH ~ Although Apple administers these user-to-user communities, that doesn't include reading each of thousands of daily posts for possible feedback. However, Apple will "read all feedback carefully" here:


Feedback - Notes - Apple


õ¿õ¬

Sep 24, 2024 5:37 AM in response to rmv7

This is a standard suggestion for diverse problems with macOS. If you have any antivirus, cleanup or VPN apps installed then uninstall them using the developers' instructions, they are not needed by macOS and are known to cause problems. Also it's a good idea to restart in safe mode followed by a normal restart.

Unable to open any of my saved notes in Notes app after Sequoia update

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