Is there any way for me to extract notes from an iPod Touch backup? I had forgotten to back up the notes on my old iPod Touch and subsequently lost all my notes on it. It's been a year and a half now, and the older computer with the backup has Snow Leopard clean-installed on it.
If I restore the older installation of Leopard with Time Machine, would it be possible for me to extract the notes from the iPod Touch backup? (1st gen, iPod Touch software 2.0)
Restore your old backup folder from Time Machine somewhere on your hard drive. Then using iPhone Backup Extractor, extract the notes. Your iPod isn't used in this process.
http://www.iphonebackupextractor.com/
This is probably the easiest way without resorting to wiping your iPod.
The obvoius way it to have a device that you restore the old backup (including the notes) overwriting whatever is currently on the device.
You can then see, edit, mail or sync the notes as appropriate.
The format of the backup files has changed pretty substantially for each major version and there are tools that read the files directly but I can't recommend and would welcome comments or an edit/separate answer to address specifically a tool to get at 2.0 version backup files.
It is possible to decode the files without restoring them but iTunes will take care of interpreting all versions of a backup file to upgrade it to whatever newer version you have on your device so unless you can't spare a device to rescue the notes, it's often not worth the time to dig up a special tool just to get the notes.
This is the best tool out there for extracting everything (not just notes) from your iPhone
