NoteRescue: Recover Lost Apple Notes
Get deleted, lost or overwritten Apple Notes back from your Time Machine backups and iPhone backups. NoteRescue finds every older copy of your notes, shows you which ones are missing today, and brings them back without touching your backups.
Download and scan for free · Buy NoteRescue · macOS 14 or later
When it helps
Notes go missing in ordinary ways: a note deleted more than 30 days ago, a long note typed over by mistake, notes that vanished after signing out of iCloud, turning off sync, an update or a new Mac. Apple’s Notes app keeps deleted notes for about 30 days and has no version history, so once a note is gone from Recently Deleted, the only copies left are in your backups.
Those copies are hard to use. Time Machine can’t restore a single note; the usual recipe is to swap the whole Notes folder on your Mac while offline, which risks today’s notes. An iPhone backup can only be restored over the whole phone. NoteRescue reads both kinds of backup directly, so you can pick out exactly the notes you need.
How it works
- Scan. Open NoteRescue and let it look for your Time Machine backups, the iPhone and iPad backups on your Mac, and any folder you add. Encrypted iPhone backups work too: you type the backup password you chose. The scan is free.
- See what’s missing. Every note found is compared with the notes on your Mac today and sorted into Missing, Recently Deleted, Changed and Same as Today. For a changed note, you can see each older version found and compare it with today’s text.
- Bring it back. Export the notes you choose as Markdown, HTML, PDF or plain text, with their attachments, or restore them into the Notes app, in a new folder called “Recovered” with today’s date. Your current notes are never replaced.
What it can recover
- Notes that are in a Time Machine backup of your Mac: on a disk connected to the Mac, or on a network backup the Mac has mounted. Both newer (APFS) and older (Mac OS Extended) Time Machine disks work.
- Notes that are in an iPhone or iPad backup made in Finder or iTunes, including encrypted backups when you know the password.
- Notes in a copied folder, such as an old Mac’s Notes folder, an iPhone backup copied from another computer, or a Time Machine backup folder.
- iCloud notes, “On My Mac” and “On My iPhone” notes, as long as the device had them when the backup was made.
- Text, formatting, checklists, links and attachments such as photos, scans and PDFs that were saved in the backup. Tables come out as simple tables without formatting (plain text in text exports).
What it cannot recover
Being clear about this saves you time:
- Notes that were never in any backup. If a note was created and deleted between two backups, or there is no backup from before the loss, there is nothing to recover. The free scan tells you this before you pay.
- Notes stored only in iCloud. NoteRescue doesn’t sign in to iCloud or read iCloud.com, and it doesn’t need your Apple Account password. Check Recently Deleted on iCloud.com yourself (see our guide).
- Locked notes. NoteRescue tells you how many password-protected notes it found, but never tries to unlock them. Open them on a device where you know the password.
- Local snapshots on the Mac’s own disk. Version 1 reads Time Machine backup disks and iPhone backups, not the temporary local snapshots macOS keeps on the internal disk.
- Notes from Gmail, Outlook or other mail accounts that only lived on the mail server. Check that account’s Trash or Deleted Items folder.
- Handwriting and drawings can’t be rebuilt as editable drawings. At best they come back as a picture; the free scan shows which notes have drawings.
Compared with other ways
| NoteRescue | Time Machine by hand | Data recovery suites | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Get back one note without touching today’s notes | Yes | No: you swap the whole Notes folder, offline, then swap it back | Rarely: they look for deleted files, but notes live inside one database |
| See which notes are missing compared with today | Yes | No | No |
| Read iPhone backups, encrypted too | Yes | No | Some do |
| Changes your backups or disk | Never: read only | The restore writes into your Library | Some write recovered files to the same disk |
| Price | Free scan, USD 24.99 once | Free | Often USD 50 to 100, or a subscription |
Time Machine by hand is free and works if you’re careful; our guide How to restore a note from Time Machine walks you through it. Data recovery suites are built to undelete files from a disk. On a modern Mac with an SSD, deleted data is usually erased quickly, and a note is a record inside the Notes database rather than a file, so they are rarely the right tool for Notes.
Private by design
NoteRescue works on your Mac and works offline. It has no account and no tracking, and it never uploads your notes or backups anywhere. It only reads your backups and never changes, moves or deletes anything in them. Your backup password is used only on your Mac and is never stored. Details are in the privacy policy.
Pricing
- Free scan: every source, every note found, with title, dates, folder, the first paragraph of text, how many more lines and which attachments it has and, for a changed note, how many lines differ from today. You see what can be recovered before you pay.
- USD 24.99 one-time: full preview, version comparison, export to Markdown, HTML, PDF and plain text with attachments, and restore into Notes.
One payment, no subscription. Use it on up to 3 of your Macs, with one year of updates and a 30-day refund. Buy NoteRescue
Questions
Does NoteRescue change my backups or my Notes? It never changes your backups. Your notes in the Notes app are only touched when you choose Restore, and then NoteRescue adds notes in a new folder; it never edits or deletes existing ones.
Do I need Time Machine? You need at least one older copy of your notes: a Time Machine backup, an iPhone or iPad backup on your Mac, or a copy of the Notes folder. The free scan shows what you have.
My notes were only on my iPhone. Can I use NoteRescue? Yes, if your Mac has an iPhone backup from before the notes were lost. Be careful: making a new backup of the iPhone in Finder replaces the old one. Scan first. See Get notes back from an iPhone backup on a Mac.
I deleted a note more than 30 days ago. Is it gone? It’s gone from the Notes app, but a backup made while it still existed still has it. See Recover deleted Apple Notes after 30 days.
My backup is encrypted. Type the password you chose when you turned on encryption. NoteRescue can’t open an encrypted backup without it.
Why does it need Full Disk Access? macOS protects the Notes folder, Time Machine backups and iPhone backups. NoteRescue needs Full Disk Access to read them. You turn it on in System Settings and can turn it off at any time. See Help.
Does restore keep the original date? The Notes app gives a restored note the date you restore it. NoteRescue writes the original date at the top of each restored note, and exports keep the original dates in the file.
Does it work with iPad notes? Yes, from an iPad backup made in Finder or iTunes, the same way as an iPhone backup.
Helpful guides
Step-by-step guides that work with or without NoteRescue: all guides.
- Recover deleted Apple Notes after 30 days
- How to restore a note from Time Machine
- Apple Notes disappeared: what to check first
Support
Help and setup · What’s new · Email support@kayabyte.dev. NoteRescue is made by Kayabyte, the trading name of Caner Kaya, Stasjonsveien 64, 0771 Oslo, Norway. See also the terms of service and refund policy.
Apple, Mac, iPhone, iPad, iCloud, Finder and Time Machine are trademarks of Apple Inc. NoteRescue is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple Inc.