I will explain in this post how to restore local notes from a backup to Apple’s Notes app on macOS.
1. Quit Notes
2. Temporarily disable Notes in iCloud settings in System Preferences
3. Open Finder. Go to your home folder. Copy the folder in the following path to a safe location, just in case something goes wrong:
~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes
4. Create a backup of all notes which do not exist in your backup, if anyโฆ Copy & paste them to a safe place.
Warning! After the following step, all your existing notes will be permanently deleted and notes on the backup will replace them eventually. If your backup does not include all your notes, you will have to manually restore the missing parts by copying & pasting them into your Notes app.
5. If you are ready it is time to restore all your notes from your backup. Copy the folder in the following path from your backup to your home folder, or restore it via Time Machine from an older time point.
~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes
6. Run your Notes app and enable Notes in iCloud if you wish.
You should now have all your local Notes back… Congrats!
Iโm a US-based software engineer with a background in law. I share mostly practical tech notes here for my future self and anyone who finds them useful.
One of the things Iโve built is Masterlist: Focus & Tasks, a privacy-focused, local-storage-only task manager that offers focus tracking tied to tasks and projects, compatible with the Pomodoro technique.
Thanks to my past self.
Thank you for this post – it helped me recover from a “oh no, I’ve deleted my notes-not-yet-synced-to-iCloud” moment.