How to Recover Notes Disappeared from Mac after Update (macOS Ventura)

The folder in my Notes app containing my notes stored on my MacBook has disappeared after the latest update to macOS 13 Ventura. Now I’m going to be faced with searching through various folders in ~Library. —User From MacRumors

I created a note on my laptop on my iCloud account very recently and closed the notes app, the next morning I went to open it and it randomly disappeared. It did not appear in the recently deleted folder, and restarting both my phone and laptop did not recover the file, so does anyone know how I could possibly recover the data?—User From Apple Discussion

As you can see, mac notes often disappeared or go after an update or iCloud setting changes. If your Mac notes are missing after the latest Ventura, Monterey, or Big Sur upgrade, in this article we will show you 6 ways to recover disappeared or deleted mac notes with ease.

Contents

Way 1. Recover Disappeared or Lost Mac Notes from Recently Deleted Folders

Whenever we found the notes files get disappeared or are deleted on Mac, we are always caught in a panic and forget to check the Recently Deleted folder, where we probably are able to get them back with ease. What’s equally important is, we must stop writing data onto your Mac, which will cause the permanent loss of your Mac notes.

Launch the Notes App on your Mac.
Go to the Recently Deleted tab, and check if your disappeared notes are there, if yes, move to your Mac or iCloud account.

Way 2. Locate and Recover Disappeared Mac Notes

If the disappeared mac notes are not moved to the Recently Deleted folder in Notes App, we should search the file by using the Mac spotlight feature, then recover from Recent Opened files.

Go to Finder App.
Click on the Recent Tab.
Input the keyword that is contained in your mac disappeared notes’ file name.
Find the lost mac notes, and open them to save or edit as needed.

Way 3. Recover Missing Notes from Temporary Folder

Though the Mac Notes app creates database-like files, instead of saving each note as an individual note file in a folder, it has a storage location to store temporary data in the Mac library. That’s to say, if your mac notes get disappeared, you can go to their storage location and recover them from the temporary folder.

Where is Note Stored on Mac:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes/

How to Recover Disappeared Notes from Storage Location?

Click on Finder App, go to Go>Go to Folder from its menu bar, and copy and paste Mac Notes storage location into the box “~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes/”.
You will get the Notes folder. Inside the folder, you should see a small assortment of similarly named files with names such as NotesV7.storedata.
Copy these files to a separate location, and add a .html extension to them.
Open one of the files in a web browser, and you will see your deleted notes.
Copy and save deleted notes to a separate location. If this way is not working, use MacDeed to recover.

Way 4. Easiest Way to Recover Disappeared Notes on Mac

If the above 2 methods fail to recover your lost notes on Mac, it means your Mac notes get disappeared completely, you need a professional and advanced solution to fix this. While the most effective solution to recover disappeared notes on Mac is using a third-party dedicated data recovery software.

MacDeed Data Recovery is the best Mac data recovery software that can recover corrupted or lost photos, audio, videos, documents, and archive from any Mac-supported data storage media, including internal/external hard drives, USB drives, SD cards, digital cameras, iPods, etc. It also supports previewing files before recovery.

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Steps to Recover Disappeared or Deleted Notes on Mac

Step 1. Download and install MacDeed Data Recovery on your Mac.

Step 2. Choose a location. Go to Data Recovery, and choose the Mac hard drive to recover deleted notes.

Step 3. Scan Notes. Click on the Scan button to start the scanning. Then go to Type>Documents and check the notes files. Or you can use the filter tool to search specific notes files.

Step 4. Preview and Recover Notes on Mac. In or after scanning, you can preview your target files by double click on them. Then click “Recover” to retrieve Mac disappeared notes.

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Way 5. Recover Mac Disappeared Notes from Time Machine

Time Machine is a backup software application distributed with the Apple OS X computer operating system which backs up all of your files to an external hard drive so that you can restore them later or see how they looked in the past. If you always back up your Mac data with Time Machine regularly, you can recover notes that disappear from your Mac with it. To recover deleted notes on Mac from Time Machine：

Choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu, or click Time Machine in the Dock.
And use the timeline on the edge of the screen to locate a version of the Notes storage folder that just precedes your deletion.
Click Restore to restore the selected file, or Control-click the file for other options. When you next launch the Notes app, your missing or deleted notes should reappear.

Way 5. Recover Disappeared Notes on Mac in iCloud

If you are using upgraded notes (iOS 9+ and OS X 10.11+), you are able to recover and edit the iCloud notes that disappeared from your Mac in the past 30 days.

Nevertheless, you have no chance to recover notes permanently removed from iCloud.com, or shared by someone else (the notes won’t move to the Recently Deleted folder).

Sign in to iCloud.com and select the Notes app.
Choose the “Recently Deleted” folder.
Click “Recover” in the toolbar to get back notes that disappeared from Mac. Or you can drag the notes from the “Recently Deleted” folder to another one.

If you’re not using upgraded notes, you can’t recover deleted notes on Mac. In this case, you have to disable Internet access immediately when you find your Mac notes disappeared. Next, you should:

Solution 1: Go to the system preferences > choose iCloud panel > log out of the current Apple ID, and the data won’t sync.
Solution 2: Check the missing notes in iCloud.com on other Apple devices but Mac.

Way 6. Recover Notes Disappeared on Mac from Group Containers

Mac group containers are the place to store databases from applications, like user data, caches, logs, and so on. Though this method is not recommended for the reason that it needs a good basic of command-line and database knowledge, you can still have a try when the other 6 above-listed methods don’t work to get your missing notes back.

There are 2 ways to recover disappeared notes from group containers, open the database files with a professional tool or copy the whole group container to another Mac for opening.

Recover by installing a 3rd party database tool

In the Apple menu, go to Go>Go to Folder.
Input ~Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes/ and click Go.
Then download and install a .sqlite viewer, like DB Browser to open the SQLite file and extract the notes information.

Recover by transferring Group Container to another Mac laptop or desktop.

In the Apple menu, go to Go> Go to Folder, and input ~Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes/.
Then copy all items under Group Containers>group.com.apple.notes.
Paste all the files to a new Mac.
Run the Notes app on the new Mac, and check if the notes appear in your app.

Tips to Avoid Mac Notes Disappeared on Mac

Export your notes as PDFs or make a copy of them for further saving. Just go to File and choose “Export as PDF”.
Always keep your notes backed up with Time Machine and iCloud, in that way, you will able to quickly and easily recover Mac notes disappeared.
After Mac notes disappeared, the first thing you are supposed to do is to check the lost files again in a Finder or Spotlight.

Conclusion

That’s all for the solutions to fix Mac notes disappearing. Although free methods do bring some assistance, they are conditionally restricted and don’t recover successfully every time. Personally, I prefer using MacDeed Data Recovery, which can scan and retrieve any lost, or deleted files with one click.

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