How can I recover lost notes on my iPhone?

ellavnbyln wrote:

Recently, I just updated my iPhone 11 from iOS 16.1 to the newest update iOS 18.5 and had backed my phone up (with iCloud notes on) before I updated it (I haven’t backed my phone up since 2022). After my phone updated, I went to my notes app and all of my notes are gone that I had only in my phone, but I don’t understand why they didn’t back up too because my notes are “synced” to iCloud. I tried turning off notes on icloud and back on, but that didn’t work. I checked my notes on the website, and my phone notes weren’t there. Is there a way I can get them back or understand why they’re not here?

Syncing and backing up are two totally different things.

When you sync data to icloud it isn't part of the backup as outlined here What does iCloud back up? - Apple Support

You can log on icloud.com on web browser and recover from there or deleted folders on your iphone.

ellavnbyln wrote:

I looked on iCloud website and it’s not there and I went through every single folder I had but none of them were recently on my iPhone.

Look here, if this link doesn't help, then your notes are gone Delete and recover notes on iCloud.com - Apple Support