Help: NoteRescue

Last updated: 17 October 2026

Setup and common questions. If something here doesn’t solve it, email support@kayabyte.dev with your NoteRescue and macOS versions (NoteRescue, About NoteRescue). Please don’t send us your notes or backups.

Turn on Full Disk Access

macOS protects the Notes folder on your Mac, Time Machine backups and iPhone backups, so NoteRescue needs Full Disk Access to read them. It only reads; it never changes them.

Open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Full Disk Access.
Turn on NoteRescue. If it isn’t in the list, click the + button, choose NoteRescue in Applications, and turn it on.
Enter your Mac password or use Touch ID if asked.
Go back to NoteRescue. It notices the change by itself: the Full Disk Access message at the top of the results goes away and the backups are read again. If macOS asks to quit and reopen NoteRescue, choose Quit & Reopen.

You can turn Full Disk Access off again at any time in the same place.

Still says it has no access? Remove NoteRescue from the list with the - button, add it again, and reopen the app. This helps when the app was moved or updated after you allowed it.

Time Machine backups

Disk connected by cable: connect it and wait until it appears in Finder. NoteRescue notices the disk and looks for backups again, then shows a notice: click Scan Again in it to include the new backup. You can also choose Look for Backups Again in the Scan menu.
Backup on a network drive or NAS: macOS has to mount the backup first. Choose Browse Time Machine Backups from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar (or start a backup), wait until the backup opens, then choose Look for Backups Again in NoteRescue.
Encrypted Time Machine disk: unlock it when macOS asks for its password, then look for backups again.
Backup from another Mac: connect the disk. NoteRescue lists the backups of every Mac it finds on the disk. In each backup it reads your own user account when it is there; if it isn’t (for example on an old Mac where you had a different user name), it lists every user in that backup who used Notes.

NoteRescue finds Time Machine backups on a connected disk by itself. If you copied a backup folder somewhere else, add it with File, Choose a Backup Folder (see Copied folders).

Time Machine keeps hourly backups for 24 hours, daily backups for the past month and weekly backups for older months, until the disk is full. Older backups are removed when space runs out, so scan soon after you notice a loss.

iPhone and iPad backups

NoteRescue looks in the folder where Finder and iTunes keep backups (~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup). If you copied a backup somewhere else, for example to an external drive, add it with File, Choose a Backup Folder: choose the backup’s own folder (the one with a long name of letters and numbers) or the Backup folder that holds several.

Don’t make a new backup of the device until you’ve scanned. Finder keeps one backup per device, and a new backup replaces the old one.

Encrypted backups

If “Encrypt local backup” is ticked in Finder, the backup is protected with a password you chose when you turned that on. It is not your iPhone passcode or your Apple Account password. NoteRescue shows it as an encrypted backup, marked “Needs password”, with an Enter Password button. The password is used only on your Mac, to open the backup, and is never stored or sent anywhere.

Forgotten the password? If you ticked “Remember this password in my keychain”, open the Keychain Access app (on macOS 15 and later it’s in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications) and search for “iOS Backup”. Without the password, nobody can open that backup; Apple can’t recover it. Resetting the password on the iPhone (Settings, General, Transfer or Reset iPhone, Reset, Reset All Settings) only helps for new backups, not for the old one.

Copied folders

In NoteRescue, choose File, Choose a Backup Folder to add a folder that holds a copy of your notes:

a copy of an old Mac’s group.com.apple.notes folder (it contains NoteStore.sqlite),
an iPhone or iPad backup copied from Finder’s backup folder, or the Backup folder with several,
a Time Machine backup folder (a dated backup, or a Backups.backupdb folder).

NoteRescue looks inside it and lists what it finds. It only reads the folder.

Restore into Notes and the Automation permission

Restore adds the notes you choose to the Notes app, in a new folder called “Recovered” with today’s date (you can change the name). It never edits or deletes your existing notes.

The first time you restore, macOS asks whether NoteRescue may control Notes. Click Allow (or OK). This is the Automation permission, and NoteRescue uses it only to create the recovered notes.

If you clicked Don’t Allow by mistake:

Open System Settings, Privacy & Security, Automation.
Find NoteRescue and turn on Notes.
Try the restore again.

Things to know:

Restored notes go into your default Notes account (set in Notes, Settings). If that’s iCloud, they also appear on your other devices.
The Notes app gives a restored note today’s date, so NoteRescue writes the original date at the top of each note.
Attachments (photos, drawings as pictures, PDFs, audio and other files) are added to the restored notes when the backup has them.
You can stop a restore. Notes added until then stay in Notes; choosing Try Again adds the rest without adding the same note twice.
If you only want a safe copy, use Export instead: it saves files and doesn’t touch the Notes app.

Export

Export saves one file per note in the format you choose: Markdown, HTML, PDF or plain text, in a new folder with a subfolder for each Notes folder. Each file is named after the note’s title; characters that other apps or Windows can’t use in file names are replaced (for example # becomes - and [ ] become ( ), so the files also work in Obsidian). Export folders are named with the date, such as “NoteRescue Export 2026-10-17”, so they sort in order in Finder. The note’s original created and edited dates are written in the file and set as the file’s dates in Finder. Attachments are saved in an attachments folder next to the notes. The export folder and its files can only be opened by your user account on this Mac; you can change that in Finder (File, Get Info) if you want to share them. Choose a folder that iCloud Drive doesn’t sync if you want the files to stay only on this Mac.

The export sheet says which version it saves: the newest version found, or the version you picked in the detail pane. To print a note, export it as PDF and print the PDF from Preview.

A large export shows its progress and can be stopped. The notes saved until then stay in the folder, with a README.txt (Markdown, PDF and plain text) or index.html (HTML) listing what was saved.

What the groups mean

NoteRescue opens on Can Be Recovered: the Missing, Recently Deleted and Changed notes together. A line above the list sums up what the scan found. If nothing can be recovered, it says so.

The search field looks through the title, folder and whole text of every note, in the free scan too. The free scan does not show text beyond the first paragraph, so a note found by a word further down is listed with “Match found in the note text (unlock to see it)”.

Missing: in a backup, but not in Notes on this Mac today. This includes notes that were in a backup’s Recently Deleted folder and are gone today; the Folder column then says “Recently Deleted (in that backup)”.
Recently Deleted: still in Recently Deleted in Notes today, so Notes will soon remove it for good.
Changed: in Notes today, but an older version in a backup is different. A note you typed over shows here, not under Missing. Open it to compare. Restore asks before adding an older version: it is added as a copy next to the current note, which is not changed.
Same as Today: nothing to recover. Restore leaves these notes out unless you ask for copies, because they are already in Notes.
Locked: password-protected notes. NoteRescue lists them but never opens them. (“Locked” always means a password-protected note; an encrypted iPhone backup is shown as “Needs password”.)

If NoteRescue can’t read your notes today (usually because Full Disk Access is off), it doesn’t call anything Missing. It shows the notes as Not Compared with a banner that explains what to do, because it can’t tell which notes you still have.

Notes that only exist on another device and weren’t synced to this Mac can show as Missing. Check the device before restoring, so you don’t end up with two copies.

Common questions

The scan found no backups. Check Full Disk Access first. Then connect the Time Machine disk, or check that Finder shows a backup under your device’s Manage Backups. NoteRescue shows the same checklist.

A note I need isn’t in the list. It was probably created and deleted between two backups, or only existed in iCloud or a mail account. See Recover deleted Apple Notes after 30 days for other places to look.

It shows locked notes. NoteRescue counts password-protected notes but never opens them. Open them on a device where you know the password.

Where is my licence key? It is shown on the page that opens straight after paying; copy it from there and choose NoteRescue, Enter Licence Key. Paddle’s email is only the receipt and does not contain the key. Lost it? Email support@kayabyte.dev from the address you used at checkout and we send it again.

How do I move my licence to a new Mac? In NoteRescue on the old Mac, choose Licence, then Remove Licence from This Mac. If the old Mac is gone, email us and we free the activation.