4 easy ways to backup your notes

Apple Notes is a versatile and useful note-taking app that’s handy for journaling and maintaining lists. Given all the important information you’re likely to have on this app, it’s important to back it up (or at least back up the most important notes) to prevent data loss. Below, we discuss four ways to back up your Apple Notes, including storing a PDF copy of it on your device, backing it up to the cloud, emailing it to yourself so you can access it from any Android phone, iPhone, Chromebook, or Mac, and storing it as a TextEdit file.

Create a PDF and store it on your Mac

An easy way to create a backup of your Apple Notes is to export your notes as PDF files and save them to your laptop or phone. To create a PDF of your note:

1. Launch the Notes app on your Mac.
2. Open the note you want to back up.
3. Select File and click Export as PDF.

4. Name the PDF and choose a location to save it.

You can do this individually for each note you want to keep a backup for. However, this method may be time-consuming if you have too many notes. Since you can’t export notes to PDFs on your iPhone, AirDrop each PDF from your Mac to your iPhone and your iPad so it serves as an additional backup.

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Set up iCloud backup for Notes

Another way to ensure you always have a copy of your Apple Notes is by setting up iCloud for the Notes app. Here’s a quick tutorial on what you’ll do:

1. Navigate to the Apple menu on your Mac.
2. Choose System settings (System preferences if you use an older version of macOS).
3. Click your name at the top of the sidebar.
4. Select iCloud and choose Show More Apps.

   

5. Select Notes and turn on the Sync this Mac toggle.

   

This ensures your notes sync across your devices. This way, even if you lose one of your Apple devices, you can access your iCloud notes through the others and won’t have to restore your notes.

Email it to yourself

A quick way to back up iPhone notes is by emailing them to yourself. Here’s what you’ll do:

1. Open the Notes app on your iPhone, and select the note you want to back up.
2. Select the Send button in the upper-right corner of the screen.
3. In the screen that pops up, select Collaborate and change it to Send Copy.

   

   

4. Select Gmail from the list of options you see.

This opens a new email on the Gmail app with the note as part of it. Enter your email address and other text you want to add to the email and send it. This method ensures you can access important notes from anywhere, whether or not you have an iOS device, as long as you can log in to your email account.

Copy the content into TextEdit

If you want to save a local copy of your note, copy the content and paste it into a TextEdit document on your Mac. Here’s how:

1. Open the Notes app, and select the note you want to back up.
2. Select the content within the note, right-click, and choose Copy.
3. Next, open TextEdit on your Macbook.
4. Create a new document and paste the note’s contents into your TextEdit document.
5. Select File and click Save.
6. Rename the document and choose the right location to save it.

The advantage of saving your note as a text file is that you can open the document and edit it at any time. If you want to keep these documents separate from your laptop, consider moving them to an external hard drive.

Keeping your Apple Notes secure

It’s one thing to create a backup of your Apple Notes so that you can access them if you lose your device or access to your Apple ID. However, like you keep personal photos hidden on your iOS or Android device, keeping your Apple Notes secure within your phone or laptop is also important. You can do this by setting up a strong password, locking individual notes, and updating your devices.