Notes in Gmail and the Notes app

holystungun9

Doing some Spring cleaning of my gmail. Going through my folders and saw a Notes folder and clicked to see what was in it. The notes were copies of the notes in my iphone Notes app. I went to my phone and saw that along with my icloud Notes there was a gmail account linked too.

I must have clicked on something somewhere or maybe it was an update I agreed to. I often jot down quick notes and ideas and hadn't realised that my last notes were in my "gmail notes" I'll check the settings now as I don't want that to be my default notebook and have my thoughts and ideas appearing in my gmail inbox.

Just letting others know so that they can check their own notes account.

guil

When you add gmail account settings on the iPhone it ask if you want to sync notes as well as mail and calendar.

Sad Professor

Notes still uses the IMAP backend of your email provider. I believe this is hidden in iCloud mail but shows up in Gmail. Be careful as deleting them in Gmail will delete them from the Notes app as well.

It’s a relic of the pre-cloud days. This is expected to change in iOS 9/OS 10.11.

Seesee

Sorry to piggyback OP but my problem is related:
I recently upgraded from iPhone 4 to 5s with 8.3 and running Yosemite 10.10.3
I decided start using iCloud to backup instead of my Macbook but something is going wrong and I keep losing my Notes. I got them back today by doing a restore from the day I got the iPhone 5, I then modified a few setting and backed up the cloud again and lost them again. So I had to restore again and now I don't know what to do!

Sad Professor

What email service are you syncing Notes with? Gmail? iCloud mail? Or are they just stored locally? As I said above, Notes currently uses IMAP not iCloud to sync. I don't even think synced notes are backed up by iCloud, only local.

Because of this reliance on IMAP, Notes is a buggy mess at the best of times. Losing notes is normal. This should improve in iOS 9, but you'd be better off finding a third party alternative.

Seesee

The problem seems to occur when I allow iOS to manage and view mail etc etc. Up to then the notes from the restore are there, once I agree to that they disappear. I don't know what email Notes are synching with but I think it's gmail as I wasn't using icloud mail and didn't plan to. So now I have copied and pasted them all from my phone into a draft email and that is safe for now. I will look at maybe getting an app for notes or what do you suggest? Also, would you mind advising what is the safest thing to do, back up phone and iMac to iCloud or back up phone to iMac using iTunes which is what I had been doing? I am using iCould to manage a child's account but I suppose I can do that anyway however I choose to back up.

Sad Professor

If you look in Accounts in the Notes app in iOS you’ll be able to see where the notes are being stored. I’m guessing the notes are being restored from backup but once you sync with Gmail they are being overwritten. Possibly because you deleted from Gmail without realising it. You might have better luck with iCloud’s email. Or just wait for iOS 9, which has a much improved Notes app which syncs with iCloud Drive. Backing up iCloud is fine. The issue here is most likely with Gmail not playing nice with Notes.

As for third party notes apps, I use a combination of Vesper (not available on the Mac yet), Evernote (I hate it but it’s the best there is for images and other scrapbook like content), Day One (great for journaling) and Byword (markdown). There’s loads to choose from.