Nov 13, 2018 Apple’s Notes app ticks off most of the requirements the majority of people need. The fact it’s built right into every iPhone and iPad—and that it’s free—certainly helps! There are a couple of ways you can keep notes in sync—using iCloud or taking advantage of Google—and we’re going to. Jan 03, 2017 If for some reason your Notes app has stopped syncing after the upgrade to Sierra on MacBook Pro there is a very simple solution. What happens is that any changes you make to a note on your MacBook do not get synced with other Apple devices like iPhone or iPad. However, changes made on the other devices do appear in the notes on Mac. Jan 21, 2016 If you write a note on your Mac at home but want it available to you on your phone, your work computer, or on your tablet, you can make this happen by syncing your notes. Notes for OS X can sync through Apple's iCloud service and other services like Gmail and Microsoft Exchange.
Get started
- Make sure that your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch has the latest version of iOS.
- To use the latest features of Notes, make sure that you set up Notes with iCloud or have notes saved on your device. Many Notes features won't work with other email providers.
- If you have drawings in Notes, make sure they have been updated so you can use the latest features.
Create a new note
You can create a new note directly in the Notes app. Or you can ask Siri to start one for you.
Create a note manually
Open Notes. Tap to enter your note. When you're finished, tap Done. The first line of the note becomes its title.
Ask Siri to start a note
Need to take a quick note? Just ask Siri to 'Start a new note.' Then tell Siri what you want the note to say.
Delete or pin a note
To delete a note, tap or swipe left over the note in the Notes list, then tap Delete.
To recover a deleted note, go to the Folders list and tap Recently Deleted. Tap the note that you want to keep, tap in the note, then tap Recover.Learn what to do if you're missing notes.
To pin a note, swipe right over the note, then release. If it's the first note that you pinned, a pinned icon appears at the top of the Notes list. To unpin a note, swipe right over the note again.
Do more with Notes
With Notes, you can draw, create checklists, scan and sign documents, and add attachments — like photos, videos, or web links.
Create a checklist
Tap in a note, then tap . Enter your list, then tap the empty circle to complete a task. You can also automatically sort checked items to the bottom, swipe to indent, and more.Learn more about creating to-do lists with Notes.
Format a note
To add a table, title, heading, or bulleted list, tap in a note, then tap or . On an iPhone or iPod touch, tap Done when you're finished. You don't need to tap Done on an iPad.
Add an attachment
To add something from another app, like a location in Maps or a website in Safari, tap in the app that you want to share from. Tap the Notes app, then select the note that you want to add an attachment to, then tap Save. You can add the attachment to a new note or an existing one.
Add a photo or video
To add a photo or video, tap in a note, then tap . You can tap Photo Library to add an existing photo or video or you can tap Take Photo or Video to add a new one. Tap Done, or Use Photo or Use Video.
Create folders and organize your notes
You can create folders and subfolders to help keep your notes organized. Here's how:
- If you're in the Notes list, Tap to see your Folders list.
- In the Folders list, tap New Folder.
- Choose where to add the folder. To create a subfolder, drag the folder that you want to be a subfolder to the main folder. It will move below the main folder and be indented.
- Name your folder, then tap Save.
Move a note to a different folder:
- If you're in a note, tap to see your Notes list.
- In the Notes list, tap Edit , then tap Select Notes.
- Tap the notes that you want to move.
- Tap Move To, then select the folder you want to move them to.
See your notes in Gallery view
With iOS 13, Gallery view gives you a new way to see your notes — making it easier than ever to find the note you're looking for. Just tap to see your notes as visual thumbnails. Tap again to see your notes in a list.
To sort your notes inside of folders:
- Go to the folder that you want to sort.
- Swipe down on your screen, until you see the Search field.
- Tap the Sort by field, then choose how you want to sort your notes. You can sort each folder by date created, date edited, or title.
To sort all of your notes automatically, go to Settings > Notes, and tap Sort Notes By. Then choose how you want to sort your notes.
Search for a note or attachment
To search for a specific note, scroll to the top of the Notes list, tap the Search field, then enter what you’re looking for. You can search for typed and handwritten notes. And with iOS 13, search can even recognize what's in the images inside of your notes. For example, if you search for 'bike,' search will show you all images you have with a bike. Search can also find specific text inside scanned documents, like receipts or bills.
To search within a specific note, select the note that you want to search within, tap and scroll until you see Find in Note. Then enter what you're searching for.
You can also search for attachments. Tap in the top-right corner, then tap View Attachments. To go to the note with the attachment, touch and hold the thumbnail of the attachment, then tap Show in Note.
Create an instant note from the Lock Screen
You can use an Apple Pencil with a compatible iPad to create an instant note from the Lock screen or pick up where you left off on your last note. To change these settings, go to Settings > Notes, tap Access Notes from the Lock Screen, and choose an option.
Tap the Lock Screen with your Apple Pencil and create your note. Whatever you create is automatically saved in Notes.
Keep your notes secure
The Notes app lets you lock any note that you want to keep private from anyone else that might use your device. Depending on your device, you can use Face ID, Touch ID, or a password to lock and unlock your notes.
Learn more about keeping your notes secure with password-protection.
Set up Notes with iCloud
You can use iCloud to update your notes across all of your devices. To set up Notes with iCloud, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud, then turn on Notes. You’ll see your notes on all of your Apple devices that you’re signed in to with the same Apple ID.
Learn more about Notes
- Learn how to draw with Notes on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
- Share your notes with friends and family, and invite others to collaborate on select notes.
Syncing iPhone to Mac was a regular activity just a few years ago. With faster mobile speeds, more space, great streaming apps like Spotify and Listen, and more people syncing their data with iCloud, the need to physically sync isn’t as great as it used to be. Particularly once Apple made it so that iOS updates didn’t have to run through iTunes on your Mac.
But, let's face it, we still want to add movies, music, and TV shows to our iPhones. We also want to save our photos and videos directly to our Macs from time to time. That’s when we need to sync our iPhones with iTunes.
In this guide, we’ll reveal some best practices for syncing. We also have some secret tips for maintaining a clean and optimized Mac that is free of junk cache files generated during syncing.
How to sync iOS devices with Mac
Syncing iPhone with Mac via cable
The most common way to sync iPhone to Mac is with the cable that came with your phone. Use this cable to connect your iPhone to your Mac and then launch iTunes (if it doesn’t launch automatically) to start syncing your media.
iTunes doesn’t just help you sync your media. Here are some other popular syncing options to get the most of your iPhone and Mac:
- Sync notes from iPhone to Mac
- Sync iPhone contacts to your Mac
- Sync messages from iPhone to Mac
- Sync Mac calendar with iPhone
These are easy to sync in iTunes or by turning on iCloud sync in each app. A little more challenging is how to sync Outlook calendar with iPhone.
Sync Outlook calendar with iPhone
Recently, Outlook 2016 had problems syncing with iTunes but the problem seems to have been resolved. Just make sure everything is up to date.
To sync Outlook calendar with your iPhone follow these steps:
- Make sure the iTunes plugin is added to Outlook plugins (File > Options > Add-ins > COM Add-ins). Note - Outlook 2016 doesn’t use the plugin to sync anymore so it won’t be there for this version.
- Connect your iPhone to your Mac and launch iTunes.
- In iTunes click on your iPhones name and then click on the Info tab.
- Scroll down to calendars and choose the calendars you want synced.
- Click Apply.
The same method can be used to sync Outlook contacts with your iPhone - just look for the Contacts section on the Info tab.
iPhone Sync to iTunes over Wi-Fi
If connecting your iPhone to your Mac via a cable feels like a strait jacket, you can now break free by setting up a sync through your Wi-Fi connection. That’s right, no more looking for cables. If only we could charge this way as well…hey Apple, what are you waiting for?
There is a downside to this freedom; the speeds won’t be as fast as when connected with a cable. But if you value convenience over speed, let’s get to the steps you’ll need to setup wireless iPhone sync with Mac.
- Unfortunately you’ll need your USB cable to set up Wi-Fi syncing for the first time.
- Connect your iPhone to your Mac via your cable.
- Launch iTunes and click on the iPhone icon.
- Click on the Summary tab.
- Under Options check the Sync with this iPhone over Wi-Fi box and click Apply.
- Now you can remove the cable. Freedom is at hand!
That’s it. Now, in future, when your iPhone connects to the same Wi-Fi connection it will be available for syncing in iTunes.
Now go ahead and throw that iPhone cable in the trash!*
*Don’t do that. That’s a terrible idea.
Clean up iTunes Syncing Cached Files
How to sync iPhones to iTunes? Solved!
Now let’s look at some iTunes tips and tricks to solve other iTunes problem – its love of wasting space.
For every good thing iTunes does it seems to generate unnecessary junk (it can be photos caches like images copies from iCloud, music caches like duplicates from iTunes, movies files caches from media players, or download histories of iOS devices); junk which it won’t clean up itself. With a few easy steps you can clean up after iTunes to free up space on your hard disk and make your system faster.
Remove iTunes Backups
iPhone backups can take up a lot of space. You may find that you have old backups that aren’t needed anymore or a current backup that you’d like to move to an external drive or the cloud to save space on your system.
Luckily this is not hard to do.
- Open iTunes Click Menu > Preferences > Devices
- Control-click the backup you want and show in finder to then move it somewhere else.
- To delete instead, highlight the backup and click Delete Backup.
- Confirm
Mac Sync Notes With Iphone
You can also use CleanMyMac X, which is a specialist Mac cleaning app that is brilliant for removing iTunes junk. It even has a section called iTunes Junk!
Remove Old iOS Updates
If you update your phone by syncing your iPhone with iTunes, instead of running the update from the phone itself, then you’ll probably find that iTunes has kept the old iOS setup files. After the update, these files serve no purpose other than to annoy you when you discover how much space they are wasting.
To manually find these old iOS update files navigate to ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates and move them to the trash.
Alternatively, to automatically remove old iOS updates and other iTunes junk, CleanMyMac is the one-click solution. It only removes files you don’t need, which gives peace of mind for those who worry about doing something wrong.
Remove Broken iTunes Downloads
It’s frustrating enough when an iTunes download fails. But it’s even worse when you realize this download, which you can’t even use, is taking up your precious hard drive space. Thankfully, removing broken downloads is as easy as it gets with CleanMyMac X.
Within CleanMyMac you will find a Smart Clean scan as well as a specialized iTunes Junk scan. Either option will quickly hunt down your broken downloads and present you with the option to remove them from your system with a single satisfying click.
Remove Photos Cache
Cache files serve a purpose, increasing the speed of certain actions, but the real world impact is minimal. With all the syncing that occurs today, you may not realize just how many cache files are being created without your knowledge.
One of the worst offenders is Photos, so if your Mac is low on space one of the first things to look at is your Photos cache folder. You’d be surprised how big it can get. One solution is to delete the cache folder. Your actual library photos will remain untouched.
To remove your Photos cache files:
- Open Finder and control click on Pictures > Photos Library and click Show Package Contents.
- Drag the Photos Cache folder to the trash.
Important Note - Manually deleting the cache folder could potentially cause a corruption of the Photos app. A safer and easier solution would be to download and install CleanMyMac X.
To use CleanMyMac to safely remove your Photos cache files:
- Download, launch CleanMyMac
- Select Photos Junk in the left menu
- Locate your library and click Scan
- Click Clean
Remove Duplicates
Speaking of photos, once you start using multiple devices it’s very easy for your iPhone photos to get backed up and duplicated all over the place. Things can get messy very quickly, and an iPhone sync with Photos just complicates the process even more.
Manually looking through your system for duplicate photos is a nightmare. Instead, try a Gemini 2 The Duplicate Finder. It will quickly scan your system and present all your duplicate photos, making it incredibly easy to choose what stays and what goes.
It’s not just duplicate photos that you can get rid of. You can also use the app to scan your iTunes library for duplicates of songs that you’ve accumulated over the years.
You’ll be amazed at how many of them are hidden all over your Mac, and how much space you can free up. As with CleanMyMac, Gemini is incredibly safe. In fact, if you remove a photo by mistake, it can easily bring that photo back from the dead.
Mac Note App Sync With Iphone 6
One-stop sync solution for your iPhone
We’ve described several ways of syncing different data between Mac and iPhone or any iOS running device. But if you are looking for one-stop solution that will sync all data between Mac and your iPhone directly, within one app and without the need to use cloud storages — take a look at SyncMate.
This app will sync contacts, calendar events, folders with files, Safari bookmarks, photos and music directly between native apps on Mac and iPhone. You can mount iPhone as Mac disk and work with it’s content in Finder, view text messages and calls history on Mac, backup iPhone data on Mac; sync can be performed in background and automatically. Note, due to iOS limitations folders on Mac can be synced with User/media folder on iOS only, as well as Mount option allows mounting this exact folder only. More about syncing iOS with Mac using SyncMate along with the full list of sync options and sync directions for them can be found here.
Sync Iphone To Computer
BTW, iOS devices are not the only ones SyncMate supports. With SyncMate you can sync data on Mac with Android, mounted or MTP devices, other Macs, Google, iCloud and Dropbox accounts, Microsoft service — one app fits all.
Sync and Swim
Mac Note App Sync With Iphone 8
When we know we have to sync our Mac with iPhone, it can feel like a chore. We hope that this guide has given you the tools to make syncing iPhone to iTunes much easier and more productive. Not just for you but also for your Mac, which will surely benefit from a good iTunes cleaning from CleanMyMac, Gemini, and the manual tips we revealed in this guide.
Here’s to the beginning of a new and harmonious relationship between your Mac and your iPhone.