What to Do When Your Notes Are Missing in GoodNotes

Losing notes in GoodNotes can be a frustrating experience, especially if you’ve spent hours organizing and annotating your content. While it’s rare, notes can occasionally go missing due to syncing issues, app crashes, or storage problems. Fortunately, there are several ways to recover your lost notes. Here’s a step-by-step guide on what to do if you find that your notes have disappeared in GoodNotes.

1. Check Your iCloud Sync Settings

GoodNotes relies on iCloud to sync your notes across devices. If your notes aren’t showing up on your iPad or other devices, it’s possible that your sync settings were disrupted.

• How to Check iCloud Sync Settings:

  • Open Settings on your iPad.

  • Go to [Your Name] > iCloud.

  • Ensure that GoodNotes is toggled on under Apps Using iCloud.

  • Go to GoodNotes Settings > Sync Settings and check that iCloud Sync is enabled.

If iCloud is turned off or not syncing properly, turning it back on should resolve the issue, and your notes may appear after the sync is completed.

2. Check for Recent App Updates

Sometimes, missing notes can be caused by bugs that are fixed in newer versions of the app. It’s a good idea to check for any available updates for GoodNotes.

• How to Update GoodNotes:

  • Open the App Store.

  • Tap your profile icon in the top right corner.

  • Scroll down to see if an update for GoodNotes is available and tap Update.

After updating, relaunch GoodNotes to see if your notes reappear.

3. Reboot Your Device

It might sound simple, but restarting your device can sometimes fix minor glitches that may cause your notes to disappear. A fresh restart can help resolve syncing and cache issues.

• How to Restart Your iPad:

  • Press and hold the Power button and either Volume Up or Volume Down until the power off slider appears.

  • Slide to power off, wait a few seconds, and then turn your device back on.

Once restarted, check if the missing notes reappear.

4. Check Your Recently Deleted Folder

GoodNotes has a Recently Deleted folder where deleted notebooks or pages are temporarily stored before being permanently removed. If you accidentally deleted your notes, they may still be recoverable.

• How to Restore Notes from Recently Deleted:

  • Open GoodNotes and go to the Documents view.

  • Tap the three dots icon in the top right corner and select Manage.

  • In the sidebar, choose Recently Deleted to see if your notes are there.

  • Select the notes you want to restore and tap Restore.

If the notes were deleted recently, this is the easiest way to get them back.

5. Search for Your Missing Notes

GoodNotes has a powerful search feature that allows you to search through all your notebooks and notes, including handwriting and typed text. It’s possible that your missing notes are still there but are simply not showing in the view you’re looking at.

• How to Search for Notes:

  • Open GoodNotes and go to the Documents view.

  • Tap the Search bar at the top and type a keyword, phrase, or tag from your missing notes.

  • Review the search results to see if your notes appear.

This can help locate your notes if they’re still within the app but buried within other notebooks.

6. Check Other Devices or GoodNotes Versions

If you use GoodNotes on multiple devices, your notes may still be on one of them, even if they’re missing from your current device. Try checking on another device where you have GoodNotes installed, such as your iPhone, or another iPad.

• How to Check Notes on Another Device:

  • Open GoodNotes on your other device and check if the missing notes appear there.

  • If your notes are available on another device, try syncing them again or exporting them to your current device.

You can also check if your notes are backed up on any cloud storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive if you use them with GoodNotes.

7. Check Your Backup and Restore Options

If you’ve backed up your notes to iCloud or another cloud storage service, restoring a backup can bring back missing notes.

• How to Restore a Backup from iCloud:

  • Go to Settings > GoodNotes Settings > Backup.

  • Check if you have a recent backup of your missing notes.

  • Restore from the backup if needed, keeping in mind that restoring will replace your current data.

8. Contact GoodNotes Support

If you’ve tried all of the above steps and your notes are still missing, it’s time to contact GoodNotes support. They can help you investigate the issue and potentially recover your lost data.

• How to Contact Support:

  • In GoodNotes, go to Settings > Help & Support and tap Contact Support to send a message describing the issue.

GoodNotes support can provide more specific troubleshooting steps or investigate any potential bugs that caused the issue.