Exporting notes from iCloud Notes to OneNote including images, characters and fonts

[giulio91]

Hi All,

I really need your help with something related to OneNote notes. I would need to export notes from iCloud to Microsoft OneNote and I am using the built-in functionality in iCloud application to share the notes with OneNote. It partially works but when it does not include all the images and the same fonts and characters I have selected in the previous iCloud notes.

Did somebody encounter the same issue and can help me? I would like to migrate several notes from iCloud to OneNote by not copying all of them individually, and keeping all the pictures and original fonts.

Thanks in advance,
Giulio

 

[posguy99]

You don't. This is one of the reasons not to use Apple Notes, the difficulty in getting your information back out.

 

[giulio91]

I see - thanks for your response. I was trying to see if someone had already found a workaround, apart from copying and pasting everything to OneNote manually

 

[planteater]

I’m a heavy Notes user with plenty of important documents. It’s a great app and works flawlessly across macOS and iOS.

But I’m also wanting to find a way out. Not because I prefer any other app, but because I feel that my data is at risk since I can’t export into a format that I can save and archive.

If anyone finds an export solution I’d be interested as well.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Apple Note's lack of exporting / backing up data has made it an app that I only use as a post-it note board. Serious work notes go in OneNote. Personal journaling/thoughts go in Day One.

To answer your question - I don't think there is a way.

OneNote is extremely powerful and I really like it - I use it all day and have thousands of notes in it myself (mostly work).

To migrate notes I copy/paste data into a text editor (to remove formatting) - then COMMAND SHIFT 4 to cut out the images and paste them into OneNote. Yeah, it's slow and painful.

 

[giulio91]

Apple Note's lack of exporting / backing up data has made it an app that I only use as a post-it note board. Serious work notes go in OneNote. Personal journaling/thoughts go in Day One.

To answer your question - I don't think there is a way.

OneNote is extremely powerful and I really like it - I use it all day and have thousands of notes in it myself (mostly work).

To migrate notes I copy/paste data into a text editor (to remove formatting) - then COMMAND SHIFT 4 to cut out the images and paste them into OneNote. Yeah, it's slow and painful.

Thanks for your comment here. In regard to the following thing you mentioned:
To migrate notes I copy/paste data into a text editor (to remove formatting) - then COMMAND SHIFT 4 to cut out the images and paste them into OneNote. Yeah, it's slow and painful.

What I actually need is to maintain exactly the same format and include the images and anything else while copying and pasting from iCloud Notes to Microsoft OneNote. If I use the Share functionality button on iCloud Notes app, it does exactly what you said (copying just the text), but I am interested in copying everything (images included) to keep the work and notes saved on iCloud. As far as I have seen so far, the only way to copy everything is to select EVERYTHING within the icloud note, cmd+c, then go to onenote and within a page of a section do a cmd+v to paste everything. And it seems to work, but for thousands of notes it'll take probably a day of work The share functionality would have been much more appreciated - i have told the Apple support already!

 

[posguy99]

OneNote is extremely powerful and I really like it - I use it all day and have thousands of notes in it myself (mostly work).

OneNote is a joke on the Mac until it has feature parity with the Windows version.

 

[iGlock]

Hi All,

I really need your help with something related to OneNote notes. I would need to export notes from iCloud to Microsoft OneNote and I am using the built-in functionality in iCloud application to share the notes with OneNote. It partially works but when it does not include all the images and the same fonts and characters I have selected in the previous iCloud notes.

Did somebody encounter the same issue and can help me? I would like to migrate several notes from iCloud to OneNote by not copying all of them individually, and keeping all the pictures and original fonts.

Thanks in advance,
Giulio

Came across this.

Apple Notes Export to HTML​

I then came across a great little Mac App called Exporter 3.0. It’s one of those apps that do one job, really, really well. It will export all of your Apple Notes as HTML or Markdown in an excellent folder structure. As a bonus, it’s free to export all of your notes, but a respectable £4.49 to unlock the single folder export option.

Your Apple Notes are exported into nested folders, which helps significantly with the next step. If there are any failed exports, they are placed in a separate failed export folder which you can review and complete a manual (copy/paste) of the notes into OneNote. My 1,000 note export only had three failures, so it wasn’t too onerous to fix them.

HTML > Microsoft OneNote import​

The HTML export format seemed to work best for importing notes into OneNote, but I found I could only import one note at a time using the OneNote macOS app. So, I had to search again to find a solution. Thankfully, I found one called OneNote batch for Mac. Unfortunately, this app isn’t free but costs a reasonable $18.00 to unlock fully.

First, I had to replicate my Apple Notes folder structure as OneNote Sections before starting the import process. Once they were built, I could select all exported notes in a single folder and import them into OneNote with ease. Repeat for the other folders, and within a short amount of time, all my Apple Notes were now in OneNote. I did note that I couldn’t import nested folders, but I’m not sure if that’s a limitation of the app or me?

Conclusion — The Apple walled garden can be scaled if you are motivated enough!​

I wish it were easier to export all your data from Apple’s default apps and import it into a new app. It really shouldn’t be this hard. Having to resort to two third-party apps is a disappointment.

 

[MacGizmo]

Very nice little tutorial. Thanks for sharing!