Import Apple Notes on iOS

Support
1

Hey there,
Does anyone know how to import Apple Notes on an iPhone/iOS? Or can this only be done via the Mac version. This would be a deal-breaker for me in terms of paying for the app, so it would be super helpful to know!
Thanks,
J

2 Likes
2

It’s not technically possible on iOS. Apps are sandboxed and don’t have access to other apps’ data.

3

I’m afraid we have no access to Apple’s data on iOS. Only standard copy/paste and sharing.

4

I try to import my notes from Notes of Apple but there is a cursor that appears but it does not move and remains gray. So I can not import and I must close application. Can you help me I must have about 900 notes in apple notes.

5

It is probably just taking a long time. If the notes are long, there is a lot of work to do. You could either just leave the app for a while, or try using the iExporter app to export the Apple Notes and import them into Agenda. The latter seems to work well if you have a lot of notes.

6

hi!
I have an iPhone and iPad but no Mac – does this program you mentioned (iExplorer) let me import notes into my idevices?

thanks very much!
pete

7

No. iExplorer is more for emergency situations where you need to move files around inside the app.

To import, you should be able to put the file in the Files app, or Dropbox, or similar, and select it, and choose “Open In…”. If you choose Agenda, it should import.

Kind regards,
Drew

8

hi!
thanks for the quick response!
i think i phrased my question incorrectly - apologies.
I have an iphone & ipad and would love to use agenda instead of notes app which comes from apple…
how do i get all my notes into agenda?
i have to somehow export them out of the iphone/ipad to my pc or icloud or dropbox, then import them into agenda?

sorry for asking many questions at once! i have so many notes in the apple notes app that emailing them or copy/paste one at a time would take a long long time.

pete

9

Hi Pete,
I’m afraid we haven’t got a great solution for Apple Notes on iOS. On the Mac, we are able to do a sort of import (not perfect) using Apple Script. We can’t do that on iOS.

All I can suggest for now is copying each note, and pasting in Agenda. Not nice I know, but not sure there is too much we can do.

We will offer a share sheet in future, so you should just then be able to shoot a note over to Agenda. Still one at a time though.

Kind regards,
Drew

1 Like
10

hi drew!

thanks again for taking the time to write me back!

i will look at some programs available on windows – maybe i can somehow upload my iphone/ipad notes to dropbox and then bring them back into agenda?

pete

1 Like
11

If you use Agenda on iOS but don’t have an iMac or MacBook, but you have a friend that will let you borrow theirs for half an hour (you won’t mess up their computer I promise), read on!

  1. Create a user in System Preferences ->users and groups. Make a new admin user so you can sign in to your own iCloud (otherwise nothing will sync with your iCloud). It wont work on a ‘guest’ account because you have to download an app.
  2. Login to the new user and sign in to your iCloud: when you login, ONLY check notes and icloud drive for apps you want icloud to have access to (otherwise it will start downloading your whole life and take forever to get this done). If you have other accounts hooked up to Apple notes, add them in ‘internet accounts’ and ONLY check notes for access.
  3. Open Apple notes so it starts loading all ya notes.
  4. Download Agenda app on the MacBook/imac and sign in to Agenda
  5. In Agenda: file -> import -> apple notes. It will automatically ask if you want to do all at once. Click yes. Because everything is cloud based, my 8 years of apple notes from various accounts imported over in less than 5 minutes.
  6. When it’s done (verify the sync on your phone’s Agenda app), you dont have to delete anything from the user account you created on your friend’s computer. Just have your friend delete the user you created via system preferences -> users & groups and it will erase everything you just did, including downloads, sign-ins, etc.

The nice thing is they don’t import as notes assigned to today’s date, so you will not have a thousand new notes assigned to today’s date.

The issue: Similar to in Agenda, you can make folders inside of folders (exactly like categories -> projects -> notes in Agenda) to put notes in. If you put your apple notes nested folders (category -> project-> note), the imported category folder is blank, but the actual notes will import just fine as individual projects, so dont panic. Basically, if your notes are in a ‘category’ setup, the ‘category’ will import as a blank project but each ‘project’ within the category will import as its own project with the notes in tact inside the project. After importing, you just have to make a new category in agenda and drag & drop the desired imported projects into it (which can get annoying if you made a lot of categories in apple notes).

1 Like
12

hi!

thanks for the info - and taking the time to reach out!!

I do not have anyone I know with a mac, and i would be a little hesitant to ask to use it for this purpose i think.

looking forward to trying agenda if it ever has some way of interfacing with my pc.

pete

13

Great tip! Thanks for sharing!

14

4 posts were split to a new topic: Can’t import from Apple Notes

15

any updates on this? i use siri to make notes since i drive a lot. i don’t have a mac or know anyone with one. my favorite part of the app odd that it syncs with my data easily so this is kind of hard

thanks