Can you find old Notes on iPhone?

You can recover and edit notes you deleted in the last 30 days on iCloud.com or on your devices that are signed in with the same Apple ID. However, you can’t recover notes you permanently removed.

1. In Notes on iCloud.com, select Recently Deleted in the folder list on the left.

   If you don’t see Recently Deleted, you don’t have any notes in that folder and there’s nothing to be recovered.

2. Select a note, then click Recover in the Notes toolbar.

   The note moves to the Notes folder.

   If you want to move a recovered note directly to a folder you created, drag the note from the Recently Deleted folder to another folder.

Note: If you delete a shared note that you don’t own, the note doesn’t move to your Recently Deleted folder. See Delete shared notes on iCloud.com.

• You can recover deleted Notes on your iPhone through the Notes app or an iCloud backup, if you've accidentally deleted a Note that you need. 
• You can recover "Recently Deleted" Notes from a folder of the same name within the Notes app, which is a pre-installed iPhone app that functions like a very basic word processor.
• If a Note is no longer on your iPhone, you might be able to get it back by restoring a backup from iCloud.
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I use Notes on my iPhone a lot, for everything from story ideas, to recommended books and movies, to grocery lists. Some of these, like the story ideas and article notes, can stay for a while; others, like the grocery lists, can be deleted quickly. 

But occasionally you might delete the important stuff off your iPhone by accident. Luckily, if the Note was deleted in the last 30 days, you can still recover it from a folder on your phone. And if it's been even longer than that, there's still a way to get it back.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

iPhone XS (from $729 at Apple)

How to recover deleted notes on an iPhone

Recovering a Note from the Notes app's "Recently Deleted" folder

If it's been less than 30 days since you deleted the Note, it should still be in your "Recently Deleted" folder.

1. Open the Notes App.

2. Push the left (back) arrow in the top left corner, until you get to the Folders menu.

3. Tap on "Recently Deleted."

4. Click on "Edit" in the upper right corner.

5. Dots should appear on the left of all items in Recently Deleted.

6. Tap the dot next to the Note you wish to recover.

7. Tap on "Move To…" in the lower left corner.

8. Tap on "Notes" to return it to the list with the rest of your Notes.

However, this will only work if the Note was recently deleted (within the last 30 days) and if the Note was not also deleted from the Recently Deleted folder. 

If this isn't the case, there is still one hope for recovering deleted Notes. If you have set up automatic backups to iCloud, there's a good chance that the deleted note will be in at least one of the backups you've saved. Even if you backup on a more spaced out schedule, or even if you don't, there's a chance the notes will be in the backup.

For info on how to restore from a backup, check out our article, "How to restore your iPhone from a backup after taking the 'nuclear option' of a factory reset."

But for any of this to work, you need to make sure that your iPhone is backing up your notes in the first place.

How to ensure your iPhone is backing up Notes to iCloud

The first step is to make sure you're regularly backing up your iPhone to the Cloud. If you need instructions on how to do a full system restore from your backup, click here.

1. To ensure Notes are being backed up with the rest of your iPhone, tap on Settings.

2. Tap on your profile (this should list "Apple ID, iCloud, iTunes and App Store" under your name), at the top of the Settings page.

3. Tap on iCloud.

4. Tap on Notes. It should be in the first few items. When the toggle goes over to reveal green, your iPhone is officially backing up Notes.

Related coverage from How To Do Everything: Tech:

• How to backup your iPhone to iCloud or a computer

• How to sync your iPhone and iPad with your email, photos, text messages, and more

• How to recover deleted photos from your iPhone, through the Photos app, cloud storage services, and more

• How you can easily delete all the photos on your iPhone at once

Ryan Ariano grew up in Baltimore when the Macintosh was cutting edge, lived in Los Angeles as Blackberries gave way to iPhones, and now lives in Jackson Hole where his life is held together by Bluetooth. He writes on a wide range of topics but especially loves nerding out across the tech spectrum. Learn more about how our team of experts tests and reviews products at Insider here.

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