My iPhone 11 recently experienced a glitch that made all of my Notes folders and notes disappear. After changing some settings, the folders returned and my iCloud notes became available again, but the notes stored locally under "On My iPhone" are still missing. Those included important information about my children and roughly ten years of medical records.
Apple Support was unable to recover them. I also checked Recently Deleted, but the folder was missing when the problem occurred and none of the notes are there now. However, the Notes app is still using about 1.18 GB of storage, so I'm wondering whether the missing data is still somewhere on the device.
Is there a safe way to access or extract that deeper data by connecting the iPhone to a computer or using recovery software? I'd like to try anything that won't overwrite the potentially recoverable notes.
3 Answers
Check Recently Deleted first, although it sounds like you already did. If the notes were stored locally and aren’t there, normal iPhone settings probably won’t bring them back.
The storage number doesn’t necessarily mean the notes are still recoverable; it could include database files, caches, or remnants from the attempted iCloud sync. Before doing anything else, make a computer backup with Finder or iTunes. Keep the backup unencrypted if possible, and don’t restore or erase the phone until you’ve preserved a copy. Some specialist recovery services may be able to examine the backup or device, but be cautious about granting anyone access to the phone.
If Apple’s standard troubleshooting didn’t help, a reputable professional data-recovery company may be the only remaining option. Avoid random recovery apps that promise to expose the phone’s internal files—modern iPhones heavily restrict that access, and installing or repeatedly using the device could overwrite recoverable data.
I’m looking for something I can safely do myself first, but I’ll avoid giving an unknown service access to the phone. I’ll make a computer backup before trying anything else.