How do I restore older versions of notes on iPhone?

[ddvmor]

Hi. My neighbour posed a question to me this afternoon that I can’t seem to figure out.

She had some important ‘administrative’ details stored in apple notes. She’s accidentally deleted some of the content of the note and can’t figure out how to restore it.

She appears to have iCloud Sync enabled. Looking online, it suggests that pressing and holding the title of the note in the list view should give her an option to restore it from ‘iCloud version history’ but she doesn’t see that option. I don’t see it on any of my notes either.

I’ve also looked online at iCloud.com but don’t seem to see restore options there either.

Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[gwang73]

The only way I know is to restore the entire phone from a previous iCloud backup or if she has an older manual backup on the computer.

There is no other way to get back deleted content in a note after you close the app or note. If you delete an entire note, it goes into the recently deleted folder and you can recover it from there within 30 days.

 

[MacCheetah3]

She appears to have iCloud Sync enabled. Looking online, it suggests that pressing and holding the title of the note in the list view should give her an option to restore it from ‘iCloud version history’ but she doesn’t see that option. I don’t see it on any of my notes either.

I’ve also looked online at iCloud.com but don’t seem to see restore options there either.

I assume, you’re referring to this:

https://support.gingerlabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/5543562363162-iCloud-Version-History-Restore-Older-Versions-of-Notes

At first glance/skim, I thought that support article was an official Apple help document. However, the instructions are for a feature in the third-party app Notability, not Apple Notes.

With that said, there might be a way albeit somewhat tedious — I have not tested:

Restore notes via Time Machine - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[matrix07]

She had some important ‘administrative’ details stored in apple notes. She’s accidentally deleted some of the content of the note and can’t figure out how to restore it.

The deleted noted will still be in Recently Deleted folder for 30 days. Just go there and drag it out to any folder you’d like.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

The deleted noted will still be in Recently Deleted folder for 30 days. Just go there and drag it out to any folder you’d like.

From the sounds of it, the note itself wasn't deleted - some content within it was.

OP, I think she's SOL. Notes are ephemeral; the current version appears to be the ONLY version.