Where are Apple Notes stored on a Mac?

By Caner Kaya, Kayabyte · Last updated 17 October 2026

People usually ask this for one of three reasons: to back up their notes, to find them in a Time Machine backup, or to move them to another Mac. Here’s where the files are, what’s in them, and what you can and can’t do with them.

The folder

On macOS 14 and later (and for years before), Notes keeps everything in one folder in your user Library:

~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes

To open it: in Finder, choose Go, Go to Folder, paste the path, and press Return. The ~ means your home folder.

Inside you’ll find:

• NoteStore.sqlite, plus NoteStore.sqlite-wal and NoteStore.sqlite-shm: the database with all your notes, folders and tags. The -wal file can hold recent changes that aren’t in the main file yet, so always keep the three files together.
• Accounts: a folder per account with attachments, such as photos, scans, PDFs and drawings.
• Other folders with previews and caches.

All accounts that use the Notes database are in here: iCloud and On My Mac. Notes in mail accounts such as Gmail or Outlook are stored differently, as messages in that mail account.

Very old versions of macOS (before about 10.11) kept notes in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes. You may still see it on Macs that have been upgraded for many years.

Can I open the notes directly?

Not easily. The note text is stored compressed inside the database, in a format Apple doesn’t document. Opening NoteStore.sqlite in a database tool shows tables and binary data, not readable notes. Developers have written parsers for it, but there’s no built-in way to read a note from the file.

Never edit or delete files in this folder while Notes is open. If you want to look, copy the whole folder somewhere else first and look at the copy.

Backing up your notes

• Time Machine backs up this folder automatically, with all your accounts. It’s the simplest safety net.
• Copying the folder by hand works as a snapshot, if Notes is quit first. You can’t merge it back into Notes later, only swap it in.
• Exporting gives you readable files you can open anywhere. See How to export all Apple Notes to Markdown, PDF or text.

Finding the folder in a Time Machine backup

In a Time Machine backup the same folder is inside each dated backup, under Macintosh HD - Data (or Macintosh HD), Users, your name, Library, Group Containers. Press Command-Shift-period in Finder to show the hidden Library folder. See How to restore a note from Time Machine for what to do with it, and How to recover notes from an old Mac’s backup if it’s another Mac’s backup.

Where notes are in an iPhone backup

An iPhone or iPad backup on your Mac (in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup) contains a NoteStore.sqlite too, but the backup stores files under coded names, so you can’t browse to it in Finder. You need an app that reads backups. See How to get notes back from an iPhone backup on a Mac.

Reading these files without the risk

NoteRescue, the Mac app we make, reads the Notes database inside your Time Machine backups, iPhone backups and any copied group.com.apple.notes folder, without restoring or changing anything. It shows the notes with their folders, dates and attachments, marks the ones missing from Notes today, and exports or restores the ones you choose. The scan is free.

Why can’t some apps see this folder? macOS protects it. An app needs Full Disk Access (System Settings, Privacy & Security) to read it, and the Terminal needs it too if you want to copy the folder from the command line.