Many iPhone users are encountering a troubling issue with the Notes app on their devices. After consenting to the latest iCloud terms and conditions, the app seemingly loses its connection to iCloud, displaying a screen with no notes, as if all user notes have been erased.
This issue occurred for me on my phone running iOS 18.2. Considering the volume of reports across social media from concerned users fearing their notes have vanished for good, this bug seems to be fairly common among iPhones utilizing any version of iOS 18. Luckily, a solution is available…
If this bug affects you, you will open the Notes app to find it completely empty. In my situation, the iCloud notes section disappeared entirely, leaving just an empty ‘On my iPhone’ group. Force-quitting the app did not help at all.
This incident coincided with my acceptance of the new iCloud Terms & Conditions on my device. Initially, I did not link the two events, but based on feedback from others online, it seems this is how the bug manifests.
For some users, it may only be a temporary hiccup that resolves itself relatively quickly, while for others, like myself, the issue does not rectify on its own. Fortunately, the steps to resolve it are simple and direct.
How to resolve the Notes vanished issue
- Navigate to Settings -> [your name] -> iCloud -> Notes.
- Wait for the ‘Sync this iPhone’ toggle to show up and ensure it is activated.
- After a few moments, re-launch the Notes app.
- The Notes app should resume working and start re-downloading all your notes from iCloud.
Restoring your notes may take some time; it took about ten minutes for all my notes and shared documents to sync back to my phone. Thankfully, everything is now restored to its original state.
As per the current insights, there seems to be no risk of permanent loss of data. Notes remain accessible on other devices and will sync back to the iPhone once the issue is resolved. It remains uncertain whether Apple has already taken measures to prevent this bug from affecting additional iPhone users.
