My notes are not syncing between Mac and iphone - I have tried every suggestion

SOLUTION: After hours of trying to fix the issue of my iphone notes not syncing to my Macbook Pro, I finally found the solution. Open Notes on your computer, go to File>Accounts>icloud and sign in through that method. Then restart your computer.

I kept going to system preferences>icloud on my Mac and it still wouldn't work, but when I opened Notes>Account and then got to icloud, success! Hope this helps someone else!

I'm having the exact same problem with Notes. I have a MacBook Pro 2021 (M1 Max) with Ventura 13.5. My iPhone is 11Pro. The Mac receives any notes I make on the phone, but changes on the Mac are not being received on the phone. I've tried every recommended option for fixing this problem – without success. I use the Notes app for work, and I can't afford to not have my Mac notes syncing with those on my phone.

I had the same exact problem. This is what I did to resolve it.

On laptop

1. Restarted laptop
2. Settings > Account Name> iCloud: Turn off Notes
3. Close the Notes app
4. Settings > Account Name> iCloud: Turn on Notes
5. Open Notes App

It's also worth noting that I did the same thing on my iPhone first...but that didn't fix the problem. Don't know if it was part of the overall solution though, so it might be worth including in your process.

WARNING: When I did this, the notes app on my laptop synced to my cloud files (same as iPhone) and I lost any edits to Notes that only existed on my laptop. I also lost any Notes that we only on my laptop and had not yet synced properly to the cloud. For me, it was a relatively small price to pay to get my notes back in sync across devices.

Those steps do not fix the problem on my devices. My iOS device (iPhone 13) reliably syncs to iCloud and my Mac M2 Pro receives those syncs. But it will NO LONGER work in the opposite direction: A change to an existing or new Note that is made on the Mac will not sync to my IOS device. Often when I try to solve this issue by editing a note to try to force a refresh, a duplicate Note appears making 2 identical notes, but the Mac-to-iOS sync still won't update either note in iOS. This has started happening awhile ago during recent updates of macOS Ventura, now on 13.4.1. My use is to create a Note or update an existing Note on macOS, then access that edited Note on iOS when I'm away from the computer. It always lets me down when I open the note on iOS and find the update I made on the Mac is never there anymore.

I finally solved this frustrating Notes syncing problem.

For the last few years Apple Notes across my device (MAC, iPhone, iPad) would not sync correctly. I had over 650 Notes, and many of them had attachments, e.g., pictures, links to subdirectories, and PDFs. And I was sharing some notes. The problems I experienced included some Notes not syncing; always a different number of notes on different devices (a difference of 30+ notes across synced devices); occasionally Notes updates would not replicate across devices (VERY bad). And I tried ALL the Apple recommended approaches and various online suggestions, including deleting ALL Notes on a device then re-syncing from Apple Cloud to refresh the sync. But despite many attempts, I just could not get my Notes to correctly replicate across my devices nor stay synced afterwards. It was a big mess and causing me a lot of grief.

Here’s how I solved my problems - which required investing over 6 hours meticulously reviewing the contents of *every single Note*. Prior to performing the activities below I deleted all Notes from my iPhone and iPad and then worked on the Notes on my MAC (I wanted to force the Notes on Cloud to sync with the changes below):

• I removed ALL embedded PDFs. Someone else mentioned they fixed Notes by doing this and sometimes PDF files are large, so I figured go after the big rocks. I found and deleted about 50 PDFs (some 25-50 pages). 
• I deleted ALL embedded TIFF images. I hardly ever *use* TIFF files anymore, so was surprised to see them - but they tend to be large.
• I deleted old, obsolete Notes files - brought down my Notes count from 650 to 500. To me, this is a stupid waste of time and I would not even think of doing this if not desperate, but since I was trolling through every Note anyway I figured it couldn’t hurt to cleanup a bit.
• I deleted the FEW embedded NUMBERS spreadsheets I had - figuring those might be Notes complications worth avoiding.
• While I left most embedded pictures (PNG, JPG or HEIC), I did remove some pics when there was, say, more than a dozen in one note. For the record, I organize most my pics elsewhere so there were only few hundred pics total across all my Notes but I cleaned out obsolete stuff.
• I deleted or resolved any Notes ambiguities - i.e., the 1st line of a Note is used for sorting and - I worry - possibly syncing, so it turns out I had a few ambiguities (i.e., Notes with the same Title line) - in one case, a half-dozen with the same name. I figure couldn’t hurt to clean that up.
• I reduced the number of shared notes (meaning shared with my family members on different Apple ID's) down to the bare minimum (less than 10) - I had about 20 shared Notes files. (My last resort w/b to unshare all.)

All considered, my effort was focused on 1) reducing raw space, 2) removing complexity, 3) eliminating ambiguities. And it worked. What a relief!

Suggestion for Apple Notes developers (if listening): Please add a “Sort by Size” option under Notes/View menu - if I’d have had this, I surely would simply have sorted by size and focused on the problem children first. My guess is that I could have solved my problems in a few minutes (rather than hours).

Good luck Notes users - I hope this helps!

• Benoit Lheureux

Solved for me

My iPad wasn’t syncing Notes. So I turned it off in iCloud and then back on. Didn’t help and of course deleted Notes from my iPad. Would not re-sync.

Here’s what brought it back:

• Turn Notes off on iPad in iCloud
• Restart iPad
• NOW turn Notes back on in iCloud. It then forced a resync.

Thank you for your instructions. UNFORTUNATELY, they do not help. Since upgrading my Mac to latest Sonoma, notes no longer syncs with my other devices which have also been upgraded to the latest iOS. The instructions above have been followed, but syncing notes has stopped.

Hello,

I’m sorry your notes are not syncing. To be able to sync your notes from iPhone to Mac, you must be signed into the same Apple ID, have Notes enabled for iCloud in Settings on both devices, and keep all your notes on iCloud, not under On My iPhone or On My Mac. Follow these steps to make sure all is set correctly:

For both Mac & iPhone

1. Open Settings on your Mac and iPhone
2. Click on your name at the top on your iPhone and Mac.
3. On your Mac, make sure Notes is checked. On your iPhone, go to iCloud, then toggle on Notes.

iPhone

1. Go to Settings
2. Tap Notes
3. Tap Default Account
4. Select iCloud

Open Notes on both devices, then go to Folders. Make sure your notes are all in iCloud, not under On My iPhone, or On My Mac.

I hope this helps!

Sincerely,

Leah Dykema

Thank You mwmom!

Wooo, finally! Works for me -

The downside is you'll lose any updates you've made to Notes on the Mac in the sync process - so backup your work... ouch.

Hey Apple - this problem is bad for folks with long usage that have replaced/upgraded their Macs, or have been forced to do Mac rebuilds to solve hardware issues - in other words, loyal customers. You can do better.

I happened upon this thread when I was experiencing sync issues between iOS and macOS.

I discovered my own problem was that the note in question had been created on iOS 16, and was syncing to macOS 10.14 (Mojave) that does not support # Tags.

I knew this, but had accidentally let a # creep into the note – Notes had automatically turned it into a Tag, and therefore it wasn't syncing to my Mac.

As soon as I put a space between the “#” and the next character, Notes no longer recognised it as a Tag and it synced across straight away.

A niche response for the tech laggards among you!

PROBLEM SOLVED

This worked for me too.

1. Opened notes and went to Notes/Accounts,
2. Clicked "Add Account" button,
3. Selected iCloud,
4. Logged in with my iCloud details.
5. Restarted machine.
6. Created a new test note on the iPhone.
7. At first it didn't sync... Neither to the notes app or on logging into into iCloud Notes in Safari.
8. I refreshed the page in Safari and it started syncing normally to the app as well.

I've done this, and Notes are still not syncing. It's as if something broke during an update.

I have:

• iPhone 12 pro, iOS v16.5.1
• Macbook pro 2019 16", OS Ventura 13.4.1

I have had similar issues for a while now, notes not synching from computer to iPhone and notes on iCloud even though logged in to the same iCloud account.

Today I decided to delete group.com.apple.notes that stores all cashed Notes data on the computer. It can found here ~/Bibliotek/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes/ (Before deleting it make a copy of the whole folder just in case you need to restore it.)

Before I deleted the folder I logged out the computers Notes from iCloud and quit the application.

After deleting the content in group.com.apple.notes I started Notes and linked the iCloud account to it again and let it sync all the notes. I have around 1500 notes so it will take sometime :).

After the syncing was done it seems to work again, I have tested to creat a note in the computer and that sync to iPhone and the other way around also. Both edit and or create a new note

As another data point, I also saw Notes stop syncing after upgrading one of my laptops to Sonoma.

I haven't found a solution to the problem yet.

Edit: Logging out of iCould on the non-Sonoma mac and logging back in pulled down notes again, but changes after the initial download of notes are not synced.

In Notes on my Mac I do not see Accounts under File. Where are you signing in?

Where are these 'System Preferences'?

If I go on my Mac to Notes > Accounts the 'Internet Accounts' section is highlighted and I am already signed in. If I choose iCloud under my name in the same section (settings) I am signed in.