Apple Acknowledges iCloud Notes Disappearing and Explains How to Fix

Earlier this month, we reported about some iPhone users temporarily losing all of their notes in the Notes app after accepting Apple's updated iCloud terms and conditions. Apple has now indirectly acknowledged this issue in a new support document that outlines steps to follow if your iCloud notes are not appearing on your iPhone, iPad, or Vision Pro.

iCloud General Feature
Fortunately, the notes can be re-synced from iCloud. Apple's steps are pretty much identical to the ones we shared earlier this month:

If your iCloud notes aren't appearing on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Vision Pro, follow these steps.

1. Open the Settings app and tap your name.
2. Tap iCloud, then tap Notes.
3. Make sure Sync this [device] is on, then check the Notes app.
4. If you still don't see your notes, restart your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Vision Pro. After restarting, check your settings again.

After these steps, your iCloud notes should appear and start syncing again on devices signed in to the same Apple Account. When syncing completes, content previously synced to iCloud should appear.

Apple updated its iCloud terms and conditions with some minor changes in September, and it has been notifying users about accepting them in recent weeks. The issue with notes disappearing has continued to affect iPhone users since our initial coverage of it earlier this month, according to social media posts.

Notes disappearing has not been the only problem. In another new support document, Apple said iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro users who receive a "Cannot Complete Action" error message when trying to accept the updated iCloud terms and conditions should update to the latest version of iOS, iPadOS, or visionOS and try again.

Popular Stories

AirPods Pro 3 Heart Rate Tracking Feature

AirPods Pro 3 Expected to Launch This Year With Key New Feature

Sunday August 24, 2025 7:16 am PDT by
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman expects Apple to release new AirPods Pro this year, and he said the earbuds will have a key new feature: heart rate monitoring. From his Power On newsletter today, with emphasis added:As for Apple's other devices, there's a lot in the fall pipeline — though many of the new products are only incremental upgrades. There will be Apple Watch updates, faster Vision...
iPhone 17 Pro on Desk Centered 1

iPhone 17 Pro Coming Soon With These 12 New Features

Sunday August 24, 2025 6:00 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max should be unveiled in a few more weeks, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman corroborated a rumor that iPhone 17 Pro models will be "available in an orange color." Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are...
Apple Watch Ultra 2 Complications

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Just Weeks Away: Eight Reasons to Upgrade

Wednesday August 20, 2025 6:44 am PDT by
We're only weeks away from Apple's annual iPhone event – rumored to take place on September 9 – and along with the new iPhone 17 series, we're going to get a new version of the Apple Watch Ultra for the first time since 2023. By the time the Ultra 3 is unveiled, it will have been two years since the previous model arrived. The intervening period has left plenty of room for enhancements,...
iPhone 17 Air Thumb 2 Blue Electric Boogaloo

Apple Has Reportedly Considered Releasing iPhone 17 Air Bumper Case

Sunday August 24, 2025 12:40 pm PDT by
Apple has "considered" releasing a bumper case for the upcoming iPhone 17 Air, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Similar to the bumper case that Apple introduced for the iPhone 4 in 2010, Gurman said the iPhone 17 Air version of the case would cover the edges of the device, but not the back of it. Those bumper cases were made of rubber. Given that the iPhone 17 Air is expected to have ...
maxresdefault

The MacRumors Show: Apple Watch Series 11 and Ultra 3 or Wait for Next Year?

Friday August 22, 2025 9:15 am PDT by
On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we talk through what to expect from the Apple Watch SE 3, Series 11, and Ultra 3, and whether it's worth holding off on an upgrade until next year. Subscribe to The MacRumors Show YouTube channel for more videos The third-generation Apple Watch SE is rumored to feature a larger display (perhaps like the Apple Watch Series 7), the S11 chip, and...
iPhone 17 Pro Dark Blue and Orange

When Is iPhone 17 Coming Out?

Wednesday August 20, 2025 5:00 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone 17 series is expected to debut in September 2025. This release follows Apple's recent trend of introducing new iPhone models annually in the fall. To unveil the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max, Apple is expected to hold its annual iPhone announcement event during the week of September 8, 2025, with September 9 or 10 emerging as the most likely...

Top Rated Comments

mortenb Avatar
10 months ago
With more and more important data in the Notes app, Apple really need to create a better way to make a local backup.
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ellpee Avatar
10 months ago
Apple needs to get out of the cloud business BEFORE a major disaster occurs.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
GerritV Avatar
10 months ago

Apple needs to get out of the cloud business BEFORE a major disaster occurs.
Couldn't agree more. None of their cloud services ever worked decently. I remember MobileMe (a yearly subscription BTW), which was so bad that Apple refunded its users and gave them a whole year of free "service".
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MayaUser Avatar
10 months ago

Good to know they finally acknowledging the bugs in iOS 18
This is a bug on ios17 as well
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CarAnalogy Avatar
10 months ago

With more and more important data in the Notes app, Apple really need to create a better way to make a local backup.
Agreed. I just tested the iCloud download your data page for Notes.

It took five days to complete the request to make my 50MB Notes zip file.

All the notes are plaintext. At least it included attachments.

They really need to do a better job with this. Pretty sure that backup only exists because they're required to provide users access to their data, but they never said it had to be in a useful format.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tomssy Avatar
10 months ago
Happened to me this week. On iOS 17. The fact that they all just disappeared from your local device is bad. It resynced to iCloud after that but took a while too. Apple has never been at the top with cloud services.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)