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

Apple Watch Ultra Night Mode Screen

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Launching Later This Year With Two Key Upgrades

Wednesday July 2, 2025 1:13 pm PDT by
The long wait for an Apple Watch Ultra 3 appears to be nearly over, and it is rumored to feature both satellite connectivity and 5G support. Apple Watch Ultra's existing Night Mode In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is on track to launch this year with "significant" new features, including satellite connectivity, which would let you...
iPhone 17 Pro in Hand Feature Lowgo

iPhone 17 Pro Max Battery Capacity Leaked

Thursday July 3, 2025 5:40 am PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro Max will feature the biggest ever battery in an iPhone, according to the Weibo leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post, the leaker listed the battery capacities of the iPhone 11 Pro Max through to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and added that the iPhone 17 Pro Max will feature a battery capacity of 5,000mAh: iPhone 11 Pro Max: 3,969mAh iPhone 12 Pro Max: 3,687mAh...
iPhone 17 Pro Lower Logo Magsafe

iPhone 17 Pro's New MagSafe Design Revealed in Leaked Photo

Wednesday July 2, 2025 8:37 am PDT by
The upcoming iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are rumored to have a slightly different MagSafe magnet layout compared to existing iPhone models, and a leaked photo has offered a closer look at the supposed new design. The leaker Majin Bu today shared a photo of alleged MagSafe magnet arrays for third-party iPhone 17 Pro cases. On existing iPhone models with MagSafe, the magnets form a...
iPhone 17 Pro in Hand Feature Lowgo

iPhone 17 Pro Coming Soon With These 14 New Features

Friday July 4, 2025 1:05 pm PDT by
Apple's next-generation iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are just over two months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models. Latest Rumors These rumors surfaced in June and July:Apple logo repositioned: Apple's logo may have a lower position on the back of the iPhone 17 Pro models, compared to previous...
airpods pro 2

AirPods Pro 3 to Help Maintain Apple's Place in Earbud Market Amid Increasing Low-Cost Competition

Thursday July 3, 2025 7:25 am PDT by
Apple's position as the dominant force in the global true wireless stereo (TWS) earbud market is expected to continue through 2025, according to Counterpoint Research. The forecast outlines a 3% year-over-year increase in global TWS unit shipments for 2025, signaling a transition from rapid growth to a more mature phase for the category. While Apple is set to remain the leading brand by...
Wi Fi WiFi General Feature

iOS 26 Adds a Useful New Wi-Fi Feature to Your iPhone

Wednesday July 2, 2025 6:36 am PDT by
iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 add a smaller yet useful Wi-Fi feature to iPhones and iPads. As spotted by Creative Strategies analyst Max Weinbach, sign-in details for captive Wi-Fi networks are now synced across iPhones and iPads running iOS 26 and iPadOS 26. For example, while Weinbach was staying at a Hilton hotel, his iPhone prompted him to fill in Wi-Fi details from his iPad that was already...
iOS 18

Apple Releases Second iOS 18.6 Public Beta

Tuesday July 1, 2025 10:19 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6 updates to public beta testers, with the betas coming just a day after Apple provided the betas to developers. Apple has also released a second beta of macOS Sequoia 15.6. Testers who have signed up for beta updates through Apple's beta site can download iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6 from the Settings app on a compatible...

Top Rated Comments

mortenb Avatar
8 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
8 months ago
Apple needs to get out of the cloud business BEFORE a major disaster occurs.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
GerritV Avatar
8 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
8 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
8 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
8 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)