Backup for Notes and Reminders apps

[bladerunner714]

Over time, I’ve grown quite fond of the Notes and Reminders apps. They are wonderfully convenient and I find it would be painful now to lose the accumulation of miscellany stored in either one. Accordingly, I set myself a task to implement regular backups of both. Ouch! My research has only uncovered such discouraging news as ‘ If you’re using upgraded reminders, you can’t restore reminders.’ Have I overlooked something? Does anyone know of a straightforward facility to backup and restore data in the Notes and Reminders apps?

 

[Rod]

I'm not sure I quite understand, what is meant by "upgraded" reminders in what you have read. Notes are backed up in iCloud by default and synced at each macOS/iOS upgrade as are reminders I think (don't have many of those). I have notes dating back to 2015 on this iPhone and my M1 MBP.
I'm assuming you do have those items ticked in iCloud preferences as well as calendars.

 

[bladerunner714]

I'm not sure I quite understand, what is meant by "upgraded" reminders in what you have read. Notes are backed up in iCloud by default and synced at each macOS/iOS upgrade as are reminders I think (don't have many of those). I have notes dating back to 2015 on this iPhone and my M1 MBP.
I'm assuming you do have those items ticked in iCloud preferences as well as calendars.

In one of the recent macOS/iOS upgrade cycles, the Reminders app was upgraded. If you research the app in Apple's community, you will see they make a distinction between the 'upgraded' and previous versions. It's true that synchronized copies of Notes and Reminders reside in iCloud as they do on any device that has sync turned on. But they are copies, NOT backups. If you accidentally hose the copy on your mac, synchronization will obediantly hose all the other copies, including iCloud, for you. There is no archive or backup of a previous version from which they can be restored as there is for Files, Contacts, Calendars or Bookmarks. At least not that I could find.

 

[rbpeirce]

I ran into this problem. I "archive" my iPhone each week, keeping the last archive of the month for three months, and bought an app called UltData which can restore from these backups. I'd like to find a better program (see below) but this one works.

There is a problem. Restored notes are not actually in Notes form. They are saved as an html file which is a pain to work with. However the preview is properly formatted and I was able to copy and paste. I never tried Reminders so I have no comment except they should work the same.

This app is capable of restoring anything you saved from your iPhone but I've never used it for that so I don't know exactly how well it works.

 

[bladerunner714]

I ran into this problem. I "archive" my iPhone each week, keeping the last archive of the month for three months, and bought an app called UltData which can restore from these backups. I'd like to find a better program (see below) but this one works.

There is a problem. Restored notes are not actually in Notes form. They are saved as an html file which is a pain to work with. However the preview is properly formatted and I was able to copy and paste. I never tried Reminders so I have no comment except they should work the same.

This app is capable of restoring anything you saved from your iPhone but I've never used it for that so I don't know exactly how well it works.

Thanks. I did come across some mention of third party utilities in my research but I was hoping for a native solution from Apple similar to the archives available for Contacts and Calendars.

 

[ferrarr]

One thing you can do to make backups of your Notes, I'm not sure if you can with Reminders though.

On your Mac, enable the "On your Mac" mode. Then weekly, monthly or when you want, copy all the changed/updated notes to the "On My Mac" section in Notes.

 

[bladerunner714]

One thing you can do to make backups of your Notes, I'm not sure if you can with Reminders though.

On your Mac, enable the "On your Mac" mode. Then weekly, monthly or when you want, copy all the changed/updated notes to the "On My Mac" section in Notes.

Thanks. Actually I've done that with Notes in the past. I couldn't find any similar facility for Reminders. I had considered giving up Reminders and just using Notes and resuming my former 'On your Mac' backup protocol but here's what I found. I still have the 'On your Mac' mode enabled and I'm still able to select all the notes in All iCloud but, when I do, the menu picks to Duplicate and to Copy are both greyed out. I suspect that's another 'feature' that snuck past during an OS upgrade. (I'm on Monterey 12.6) I suppose I could do it folder by folder but that would be very tedious. Or I could keep all my notes in one folder but that would be very difficult to manage.

 

[Rod]

I'm not quite sure how one can "accidentally hose" a note. But if you did (as on the iPhone example below) it would be moved to the Recently Deleted folder for that Folder. Then like Photos you have 30 days to restore it before it is removed from iCloud.
The same thing applies on macOS except there is only one combined Recently Deleted folder and as mentioned if you enable the On My Mac account in macOS Notes you can always copy other notes to that so they will be included in your Mac backup strategy.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Does anyone know of a straightforward facility to backup and restore data in the Notes and Reminders apps?

Here is how you backup Notes:

The Notes app keeps all your data in a single invisible folder on your Mac. The actual notes are stored in an SQLite database, which isn’t normally user accessible. Nevertheless, it is possible to back up (i.e. copy) this entire folder and put it somewhere safe. (Of course, your Time Machine and/or clone backup has backed up this folder too. These directions are just as a failsafe.)

1. Click on the Finder icon in your Dock (bottom of your screen, far left)

2. Open the Go menu and choose Go to Folder.

3. Enter the following path exactly (you can copy and paste it in) and press Enter :

~/Library/Group Containers/

4. In the window that opens, find this folder:

group.com.apple.notes

This folder contains all the notes that are stored locally on your Mac as well as on iCloud.

5. Copy this entire folder and its contents somewhere safe. This is your Notes backup.

Repeat this procedure occasionally to update your Notes backup.

What is in this folder: Your actual notes are stored in the file NoteStore.sqlite. This is an SQLite database, which is not user accessable. The folders, such as Media and Fallbackimages, contain the media files associated with your notes.

In case of an emergency, if you need to restore your Notes, you can drop this folder back in the same place it came from.

 

[bladerunner714]

I'm not quite sure how one can "accidentally hose" a note. But if you did (as on the iPhone example below) it would be moved to the Recently Deleted folder for that Folder. Then like Photos you have 30 days to restore it before it is removed from iCloud.
The same thing applies on macOS except there is only one combined Recently Deleted folder and as mentioned if you enable the On My Mac account in macOS Notes you can always copy other notes to that so they will be included in your Mac backup strategy.


View attachment 37040

Thanks

 

[bladerunner714]

Here is how you backup Notes:

The Notes app keeps all your data in a single invisible folder on your Mac. The actual notes are stored in an SQLite database, which isn’t normally user accessible. Nevertheless, it is possible to back up (i.e. copy) this entire folder and put it somewhere safe. (Of course, your Time Machine and/or clone backup has backed up this folder too. These directions are just as a failsafe.)

1. Click on the Finder icon in your Dock (bottom of your screen, far left)

2. Open the Go menu and choose Go to Folder.

3. Enter the following path exactly (you can copy and paste it in) and press Enter :

~/Library/Group Containers/

4. In the window that opens, find this folder:

group.com.apple.notes

This folder contains all the notes that are stored locally on your Mac as well as on iCloud.

5. Copy this entire folder and its contents somewhere safe. This is your Notes backup.

Repeat this procedure occasionally to update your Notes backup.

What is in this folder: Your actual notes are stored in the file NoteStore.sqlite. This is an SQLite database, which is not user accessable. The folders, such as Media and Fallbackimages, contain the media files associated with your notes.

In case of an emergency, if you need to restore your Notes, you can drop this folder back in the same place it came from.

Thanks. That's good to know.