Resolved Notes Problem

[Tim&Hayley]

Hi, spent 90 mins on Apple support yesterday with no success so looking for help. Wife & I have been sharing Apple ID for many years but my apple Watch now means we need one each. Prior to change i backed up her phone to Music/iTunes. She has updated password but stayed on the original email. This has resulted in the loss of all her Notes, some of which were quite important. I used the backup and reset, and brought the Notes back but they all disappeared 5 seconds later. I downloaded a trial of iMazing and a search of the backup shows that they are still there. We don't use iCloud, just Time Machine which seemed to be the only place Apple were looking and of course they weren't there. The reset from the backup took nearly 2 hours so I am not keen on doing it again in view of the other problems it caused only to find it has the same result with them only staying for a few seconds.
Anybody any suggestions?

 

[Apple_Robert]

Was there any other data missing besides her Notes?

 

[chabig]

Wife & I have been sharing Apple ID for many years but my apple Watch now means we need one each. Prior to change i backed up her phone to Music/iTunes. She has updated password but stayed on the original email.

This confuses me. What do you mean when you say she "stayed on the original email"? Your AppleID is the email. If she is still using the original email, she's still using your AppleID. Can you confirm that she created her own AppleID?

All of the notes are still on your devices, right? Once she sorts out her AppleID, just select the Notes that are hers and share copies with her. When she has them, you can delete them from your account.

 

[Tim&Hayley]

Thanks for your replies. The only other missing data we have noted so far are a few what's apps from a day or so before. I mussed out the word 'password' referring to any ID changes.The notes after restoring from the backup just vanished within 10 seconds and when the Notes app is opened there is no sign of them at all

 

[joeblack007]

The notes are vanishing because they’re not in iCloud, they are linked from an email account. Make sure that the email address (in mail settings) is located on the device and that ‘Notes’ are selected.

 

[Tim&Hayley]

Notes are already open. Thanks for the suggestion anyway/

 

[joeblack007]

The post says that you backed up your wife’s phone to iTunes but that she retained the the same Apple ID? If she did keep the Apple ID (that was being shared) and you simply created a new one for yourself, that shouldn’t have affected her device or data in any way. Notes can only be created and stored in 3 ways: in iCloud, On the Device, or synced from an email account. iCloud is not an option, Notes on Device is not an option…what Notes was she using? I’m not referring to the App itself but the ‘account’ that she was using to create notes.

 

[Tim&Hayley]

That was what I thought when I did it, They were all just written in the app using the current Apple ID 'account'.

 

[NoBoMac]

What @joeblack007 said.

And: Just guessing here, as Calendars and Reminders work this way and can see it working the same in Notes, and ties into above. There might be embedded ID information in the Notes database that is doing a check to see if note is deleted or not, which one is newer, etc. So the AppleID has to exist and have "valid" data.

Since you have a trial of iMazing, might want to just bite the bullet and re-import notes one at a time. Bring up the backup that has the notes in iMazing, click on the Notes app icon, select all the notes, "Export to Text" at the bottom of the screen. Will have a text file for each note that you can copy/paste the notes. However, if the note is encrypted or has anything "fancy" going on (eg. noticed notes with tables do not export), out of luck with those.

 

[Tim&Hayley]

Thanks, I'll give it a go in the morning

 

[Tim&Hayley]

Thanks. I have recovered what I need.