MAC TREAT#223: Oh, Notes!

ByMike Moffit

To those who have read Kibbles over the years (and listen to Small Dog Speaks), it’s no secret that I seem to have some bad luck when it comes to computer issues. I generally feel like I have good luck in life, so I’ll take some bad mojo when it comes to tech stuff just to balance it out.

My most recent hiccup had to do with my Notes app. I sync my notes between my iPhone and two computers, and I had recently traded in my semi-broken iPhone 5 for a working version of the same model. In the iTunes backup/restoring process to the new phone, some of my iCloud settings had changed, and I found that my Notes weren’t on my phone AND ended up missing from my work MacBook Pro. (I actually found that they were missing from the MBP the day after I activated my new phone, which means that by the time they synced, all notes on my MBP had been wiped out.)

So, what to do? Enter Time Machine. As someone who perhaps experiences computer problems more than the average human, backups are not only my friend, but my BFF and sole reason I don’t go completely crazy. I wanted to just restore my Notes data, so I entered the Time Machine interface to find my last backup to restore. However, since I only wanted to back up a couple files, I had to locate what I needed.

Here’s where you find Notes data: [User] > Library > Containers > com.apple.Notes (folder)

Note (ahh, the puns!) that you’ll want to restore all the files in this folder. I originally only restored the Container.plist, and it won’t bring back what you need. It stands to reason that you’d want to restore the Data folder, too, to actually get your data back…

Once I grabbed both files/folders, I regained all the notes I had, and I made sure that they were being synced in iCloud from that point forward. Now, they sync with no problem.

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  • This cold weather looks like it will stick around for a bit. I’ve got some inside projects to attend to this weekend but will probably be feeding the wood stove and staying inside.

    Thanks for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Kali & Stephanie_