Move iPhone notes to iCloud

Question

So, today 10.8 released, and I have empty list of notes on my mac. But I have some notes on iPhone, which are not in iCloud. How to move them into iCloud?

Answer 1

Just make sure that you have your iCloud notes sync enabled on your iPhone as per:

Transfer iPhone notes via iCloud

Note that notes which were already on your iPhone before you enabled iCloud Notes sync will not automatically sync to your iCloud account.

What I would do in your case is simply email the notes to your @me.com account which you created just before you enabled iCloud Notes sync. This should move these specific notes to your iCloud account.

Answer 2

If you've got other mail accounts set up on your iPhone, the notes might be synced into that account rather than your iCloud account. The problem is that there's no way, that I've found, on an iPhone anyway to move your notes from one account to another.

If they are synced into, let's say, Gmail, you may be able to log into your Gmail account online and copy them manually into the Notes.app on 10.8.

The other problem may be that your notes are automatically stored "On My iPhone" rather than your iCloud account. You can find this out if you go into your Settings, then the Notes section.

If this is the case, your best bet will be to copy the notes individually, and recreate them under the iCloud account. It would also be a good idea to set the default to iCloud from now on.

Answer 3

If you can sync the notes from your iPhone to your mac and Notes App, you can move them to iCloud by selecting the small drawer icon located at the bottom of the Notes App. That should open a drawer which shows local notes and iCloud notes. Then use drag'n'drop to move them

Answer 4

There are two reasons:

1. You need an Apple ID/iCloud account to make sure the notes sync!

2. But if you already have a @me.com email, and you're logged in, it still doesn't show up! Well, in system preferences, in iCloud, make sure "notes" are checked on all your devices

Answer 5

I agree, you must check how many Notes accounts you have on your iPhone. To do so go to your Notes app and tap on "Accounts" on the upper right cornder. If you see On My iPhone, then you can do the following:

Some people have found that the issue was sorted once they disabled iCloud Notes sync on the iPhone and re-enabled it. Therefore, go to Settings > iCloud and toggle the Notes switch from ON to OFF and then back to ON. This chould sync your entire set of iPhone notes to your iCloud account.

Answer 6

Using OSX 10.8 it is simply not possible at the moment, what you need to do is to access a Mac running 10.7 or lower and sync them to that Mac and move them to an IMAP notes account. Then, you can access the IMAP notes in 10.8 Notes app and drag them all to iCloud. The only manual part necessary is to remove the duplicate notes left "On your iPhone" - they need to be removed one by one (or simply left alone).

Details:

1. Turn off iCloud Notes sync (Settings -> iCloud -> Notes switch to Off)
2. Set up an IMAP account in Mail on both computers (running 10.7 and 10.8)
3. Set up iTunes synchronization with the Mac running 10.7 (Make sure to select to synchronize Notes in iTunes)
4. Synchronize with iTunes
5. Go to Mail in 10.7 and drag the notes "On your Mac" to the IMAP notes folder
6. Turn on iCloud Notes sync (Settings -> iCloud -> Notes switch to On)
7. Open the Notes app in 10.8 and drag the notes from your IMAP notes account to the iCloud notes account
8. (Optional) Switch to your "On my iPhone" notes account and remove all notes, one-by-one, in order to avoid confusion later.
9. On your phone, make sure that you are using the iCloud notes account (Notes -> Accounts -> iCloud) when using notes