Notes app very slow on iPhone 7


I've been using the Notes app for years to take notes with screenshots. I now have around 2,000 folders in the app. The storage is now 100 GB and on iCloud. Thus, every time I open the app, two of the following happen. It either:


  1. Takes 5-10 seconds to load, then I can use it as normal or;
  2. Freezes for 5-10 seconds, crashes, then it works as normal when I open it again.


It wouldn't be much of an issue if I didn't have to use the app almost everyday and need to open and close it regularly. This is because I would watch an educational video on Youtube, take a screenshot of it, open the Notes app, then paste the screenshot and type in notes, then open Youtube again and repeat the process. As a result, the frequent opening of the Notes app causes the 5-10 delay to add up quite a bit.


I have 2 questions:


  1. If already hosted on the iCloud, how come the used space is still located on my iPhone storage? Shouldn't the purpose of the iCloud to alleviate the space?
  2. If I buy a new phone such as iPhone 15 or 16 with 1TB storage, would this problem still persist? I presume with a much larger storage capacity and faster processing, there should be no more delays?


Thank you!

iPhone 7, iOS 15

Posted on Feb 1, 2025 12:25 PM

Reply
1 reply

Feb 1, 2025 12:44 PM in response to Mac_7979

You’re both out of free storage on your iPhone, and are operating on what is a very slow iPhone.


What doesn’t fit in available storage necessarily traverses the network connection, too.


All of which are going to cause performance issues.


See if Apple will let you use a more recent iPhone in a local Apple Store, and then see how well that reacts.


For benchmarks, the Geekbench browser shows iPhone 7 with 815 and 1141 single- and multi-core performance respectively, and iPhone 16 with 3447 and 8485. Slightly faster.


And yes, you’ll need to acquire sufficient storage for the expected lifetime of whatever new iPhone.

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Notes app very slow on iPhone 7

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