How to Sync Notes From iPhone to Mac Using iCloud

You can sync notes from iPad, too

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Updated on November 8, 2021

Switching from Android

What to Know

On your iPhone: Create a document using Notes, then go to Settings, tap your name, and tap iCloud. Toggle the Notes slider on.
On your Mac: Go to System Preferences > iCloud and check the box next to Notes.
On your iPad: Go to Settings, tap your name, tap iCloud, and toggle Notes on.

Creating a text document in the Notes app that comes pre-installed on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac is great, but it's even more useful when that note is available on all of your devices. Here's how to sync Notes across all of your Apple devices (including devices running iOS 11 and up, iPadOS 13 and up, and macOS 10.14 and up) using iCloud.

How to Sync Notes From iPhone to Mac With iCloud

To keep your Notes automatically in sync between your iPhone and your Mac, you have to enable this setting on both devices. This works no matter what device you create the Notes on. Let's start with these steps on your iPhone:

Create a document using Notes.
Go to the Settings app.
Tap your name.
Tap iCloud.
Move the Notes slider to on/green.

With these steps done, your iPhone will automatically sync its Notes to your iCloud account whenever there are changes made on the phone.

Next, you need to set your Mac to do the same thing by following these steps:

On the Mac, go to the Apple menu in the top left corner.
Select System Preferences.
Select iCloud.
Check the box next to Notes.

With that done, your Mac is now also set to sync Notes with iCloud whenever there are changes.

Syncing with iCloud is automatic, so you don't need to do anything to sync. Whenever you make a change to a Note on the iPhone or Mac, the change will automatically be synced up to iCloud and then automatically synced back down to the other device(s). If one of the devices isn't connected to the internet when you make the change, syncing happens the next time you connect the device.

How to Sync Notes on an iPad With iCloud

If you've also got an iPad (or an iPod touch), it can sync Notes, too. Because it runs the same Notes app and connects to the same iCloud account, everything works the same way with the iPad as it does with the iPhone and Mac. Just follow these steps:

As with the other devices, start by making sure the iPad is connected to the internet and signed into iCloud.
Tap Settings.
Tap your name.
Tap iCloud.
Move the Notes slider to on/green.

You can use some iCloud features on Windows, but syncing Notes isn't one of them. That's because there's no Apple Notes app available for Windows.

Before Syncing Notes from iPhone to Mac

Before you can sync Notes from iPhone to Mac (and vice versa), make sure that your:

Then, to connect your iPhone to Mac, both devices need to be signed into the same iCloud account. You probably did this when setting up the devices, but if not just follow these steps:

On iPhone, go to Settings > Sign into your iPhone.
On Mac, go to Apple menu > System Preferences > iCloud.

When prompted, sign in with the same Apple ID username and password on both devices.

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