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 purple

New, Higher End AirPods Pro Coming This Year

Tuesday January 20, 2026 9:05 am PST by
Apple is planning to debut a high-end secondary version of AirPods Pro 3 this year, sitting in the lineup alongside the current model, reports suggest. Back in September 2025, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple is planning to introduce a successor to the AirPods Pro 3 in 2026. This would be somewhat unusual since Apple normally waits around three years to make major...
smaller dynamic island iphone 18 pro Filip Vabrous%CC%8Cek

iPhone 18 Pro Leak: Smaller Dynamic Island, No Top-Left Camera Cutout

Tuesday January 20, 2026 2:34 am PST by
Over the last few months, rumors around the iPhone 18 Pro's front-panel design have been conflicted, with some supply-chain leaks pointing to under-display Face ID, reports suggesting a top-left hole-punch camera, and debate over whether the familiar Dynamic Island will shrink, shift, or disappear entirely. Today, Weibo-based leaker Instant Digital shared new details that appear to clarify the ...
Apple Logo Spotlight

Apple Expected to Unveil Five All-New Products This Year

Wednesday January 21, 2026 10:54 am PST by
In addition to updating many of its existing products, Apple is expected to unveil five all-new products this year, including a smart home hub, a Face ID doorbell, a MacBook with an A18 Pro chip, a foldable iPhone, and augmented reality glasses. Below, we have recapped rumored features for each product. Smart Home Hub Apple home hub (concept) Apple's long-rumored smart home hub should...
Liquid Glass App Store Feature

App Store and Apple TV Experiencing Outage

Tuesday January 20, 2026 4:36 pm PST by
Apple's App Store, iTunes Store, and Apple TV service are experiencing an outage at the current time, according to Apple's System Status page. Apple says that some users may be experiencing issues with the App Store and iTunes Store. Apple also says some users may be seeing intermittent issues with Apple TV. The Apple TV Channels feature is down too, and users may be unable to access some...
airtag prime day 2

Apple Developing AirTag-Sized AI Pin With Dual Cameras

Wednesday January 21, 2026 12:31 pm PST by
Apple is working on a small, wearable AI pin equipped with multiple cameras, a speaker, and microphones, reports The Information. If it actually launches, the AI pin will likely run the new Siri chatbot that Apple plans to unveil in iOS 27. The pin is said to be similar in size to an AirTag, with a thin, flat, circular disc shape. It has an aluminum and glass shell, and two cameras at the...

Top Rated Comments

mortenb Avatar
16 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
16 months ago
Apple needs to get out of the cloud business BEFORE a major disaster occurs.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
GerritV Avatar
16 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
16 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
16 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
16 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)