Transferring Notes to iCloud?

[NoBite]

I have updated my iPhone 4S and iPad2 to IOS6, created an iCloud account and selected iCloud as the default conduit for creating and sharing Notes in the future. However, I have a great many Notes created on my iPhone and/or iPad under my Gmail and Dot Me accounts. These Notes, naturally, are not showing up in the Cloud. My question is this:

How can I transfer all Notes created via other platforms (Gmail or my Dot Me account) to the Cloud?

 

[Qman]

I know it can be done with Gmail and Yahoo becaue they both have a Notes App. So goto Settings and select "Mail, Contacts, Calenders" then Select Google Mail and turn "on" Notes. The Same should work for your othere account too if they have a Notes App! HTH

 

[NoBite]

I wish it was that simple. I have had Notes enabled in Gmail all along. If you go to Settings and then Notes, you can choose your default client for when you use the Apple Notes app. For a period of time, I had selected Gmail as the default client. Frankly, I had no idea what effect that might have and never worried about it because I was not sharing the notes I took on my iPhone with my iMac. Then, along comes iCloud and the lure of connecting all my devices. Oddly enough, the iPad and iPhone Notes did sync and actually had been in sync all along. But, the only "notes" that will show up in the iCloud version of Notes are notes created with iCloud as the default client. As mentioned, I have since designated iCloud as the default client on my iPad and iPhone. All notes created since I did this are thus shared between the two devices and also online on my iMac via the iCloud account. But, I have older notes that were created before iCloud was designated as the client for the Notes app that I would like to get transferred to iCloud. THAT is what I cannot figure out how to do.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Qman]

I see, for some unknow reason I did'nt have that problem with my old notes they just synced! Good Luck

 

[NoBite]

Thanks! Apple may address this if it is widespread.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[NoBite]

Okay, I decided to resolve this myself. This is the long way around the barn, but it gets me to the end result.

On your mobile device that has the notes created with a client other than iCloud, open Notes. Click on Accounts and select any account other than iCloud. You will now see all the notes created via that account. Go to each note and email the note to yourself using your iCloud mail address as the destination. Repeat this process if you have additional accounts other than iCloud with notes. Repeat this process for other devices if you have notes on those devices not covered previously in this step. You should now have all your non-iCloud notes in your In Box in iCloud Mail.

Open iCloud on the iMac. From the initial screen showing the iCloud apps, select Notes and open it in another tab. Then, open Mail.

Select one of the notes in your In Box in Mail. Highlight the content of the note and Copy. Go to the tab where you have iCloud Notes. Click on the "+" sign to open a new note. In the EDIT menu in the Safari menu bar, select Paste and Match Style. You will now have created a new note in iCloud Notes to match the one you sent to yourself.

Repeat this process for all the notes you sent to yourself via iCloud Mail.

Go back to your mobile devices from which you retrieved the non-iCloud notes. Again, select Accounts and go to the non-iCloud accounts. Delete every note in these accounts as you now have duplicates on your device.

You now have all your notes on all devices courtesy of iCloud. Of course, you have also designated iCloud as the default client for future notes to prevent having to do this every again. The only downside, and it's not much, is that your notes' "origin date" will appear to be the time today when you made the transfer happen instead of when you originally took the note. However, if and when you change or append any note, the date stamp changes to the time of the revision, so this isn't a big deal.

I had hoped to avoid all this with some sort of transfer solution. None being forthcoming, I hope this helps anyone else wanting to transfer notes to iCloud notes.

 

[dbplumb]

No need to email anything that is already on your phone in Notes
On the phone you can copy and paste notes from other accounts to the icloud account
Select the note, tap the action icon, select copy, then open iCloud account (in Notes on phone) tap + and paste
They appear in iCloud very quickly, and in Outlook too I see

 

[NoBite]

Cool! I actually tried to do that (copy and paste), but did not find a way to be sure that where I was pasting the note was into an iCloud note. So, thus, the convoluted email method. Your suggestion streamlines the process considerably!