I got a new phone but was continuing to use notes on my old Galaxy S9+ as well. When I accessed notes on my new GalaxGalaxy S26 Ultra, it for some reason did not sync anything new past June 2nd and the notes on my S9+ also reverted so I lost all new things between June 2 and June 12. Is there no way to restore those?
Hi @KittyKat7000, thanks for reaching out to the Samsung Community. We definitely want to get those notes over to your new phone and I would agree with @AAbbott to make sure that the Sync with Samsung Cloud is turned on.
If that doesn't work you can always use Smart Switch to transfer the files over as well. Smart Switch should already be on both phones but if not you can get it from the Galaxy Store. You will Select the option on the new device to receive data and on the old device to transfer data. It will give you the option to transfer everything or select the things you want transferred.
Here is more information on how to use Smart Switch:
Yes I have sync with Samsung cloud turned on on both devices and I used smart switch. But every note I edited on my S9+ between June 2 and June 12 reverted back to what it had been on June 2 on both devices, like I'd never done anything to them. So the edits or new notes aren't on either device anymore. I'm not sure that anything can be done since the notes auto-save there are no "revert" buttons. I dont know what happened but I do know that I'm very upset about it.
I tried to see if there was an option to backup from a previous save (for example one done between June 2 and June 12) but I didn't see that as an option and when I clicked in "restore", the Notes app wasn't included for some unfathomable reason.
Because notes are not contained on the phone, they are contained in the cloud. I believe there is a separate space for each device you have, and each notes database is stored separately unless you have enabled sync. You can enable sync by opening the notes app and going to the settings and turning on sync - do this on both devices. I do not believe it's on by default. It is not contained in a backup, but if you go to your Samsung account in the phone settings and go to Samsung cloud there is a section for syncing of Samsung apps. If you tap the little arrow next to sync, you can slide on Notes if it's not already on and your notes will sync across all devices. Turning it on *should* (I'm not sure about this), allow notes from your old phone to sync with your new one, even if you no longer have the phone. Otherwise, each device will have its notes contained separately.
Samsung stores the notes in the cloud deliberately to keep users who depend on notes to remain in the Samsung ecosystem, since Notes are proprietary. There is not even a way to back up your notes as a whole to import to another phone, should you decide to go with another brand. You would have to save each note individually as either a Word, PDF, PowerPoint, image or text file - a tedious job if you have a lot of notes. You can sync with Microsoft One Note, but then those notes are read only and cannot be edited in OneNote and shared back with Samsung Notes.
Sync is turned on. It's like when I accessed notes on the S26, all notes from every device just didn't exist after June 2nd. It got rid of them on EVERY device because I had sync on. I wish I hadn't had it on.
Because a sync is just that, synchronization between devices. It is NOT a backup, so if sync was on and you got rid of notes on one device, it would get rid of notes on all devices that had sync on. So, you have two choices, sync or not sync. If you sync, all your notes on all devices will be the same - delete a note on any device and they are deleted on all. If you don't sync, the database in the cloud is for each device and each device will contain a separate set of notes. Turning on sync, theoretically, would allow the notes on another device, previously not synced, to populate the other devices that have sync turned on. As I said, I have no idea if it works retroactively, but does not hurt anything to try. However, you said you deleted notes while synced, and those notes would not be recoverable, as even if they were stored in their own space, you deleted it from that space.
Well, the good news, then, is we are still in the month of June so, unless you had a skillion notes between the 2nd and the 14th, you should at least be able to recreate some or all of them. I don't know why your phone decided to wipe out a portion of your notes, but it is unlikely to happen again and you can decide to turn off sync and keep your notes on only the device it was created on. Keeping sync on, is still the best option. You can back up what notes you currently have using Smart Switch. You can either utilize Samsung's 30 day temporary cloud storage or a flash drive. You can selectively backup only documents and personal files (which would include notes), or your whole phone. You cannot selectively backup particular data. You can backup up everything but locked notes. Going forward you can either do a regular backup or backup whenever you create a particularly important note.
