How to Stop Notes Syncing to iCloud on iPhone

We all know the importance of data stored inside the Notes app on iPhone or iPad. If you are a single user and use a separate Apple ID, you need not worry about data leaking from the Notes app. However, if you do share the Apple ID with other people and want to stop iPhone Notes syncing to iCloud, read this post till the end.

In this guide, we will let you know how to stop syncing Notes on your iPhone or protecting it with a passkey. You may save the notes in a separate folder on iPhone storage as well. Since notes are saved locally, other people who do have access to your Apple ID can’t access your notes. Let’s learn what you need to do either protect Notes or stop syncing it to the iCloud servers.

Stop iPhone Notes Syncing to iCloud

If you want to disable iPhone Notes syncing to iCloud for privacy reasons, follow these easy steps –

Unlock your iPhone first.
Click on the Settings icon and tap on your profile name.
Click iCloud and hit Show All under Apps using iCloud.

Scroll a bit and tap over Notes.
Disable the toggle switch available next to “Sync this iPhone“.
A prompt will appear asking to delete all notes from the iCloud server.
Click “Delete from my iPhone“.

That’s it, all your notes saved to iCloud will be deleted then. Make sure to note the important things from your notes as you can’t undo this process.

How to store Notes only on your iPhone?

There’s another way by which you can continue keeping your notes on your iPhone and disable its syncing. To do so, go to Settings > Notes and enable the toggle switch – “On my iPhone” Account.

Now that you have configured notes to save inside Files, do the following –

Open the Notes app.
Click the three dots (…) available on its top-right end and tap – “Select Notes“.
Select all the notes that you want to move and click Move.
Go to the “On My iPhone” section and click “New folder“.
Provide a name to this folder and hit Save.

That’s it, the notes will be moved from iCloud to your iPhone Storage. As this folder is locally saved, iCloud will not have access to this folder.

Note: Though this is a great way to remove notes from being synced to iCloud, all your notes will be lost in case you lost your iPhone somewhere. The best way to avoid this is by setting a password to your Notes.

How to add a password to iPhone Notes?

If you want to delete iPhone Notes for the sake of privacy, you may consider locking it via a password instead. Here’s how to set a custom password to the Notes on iPhone/iPad –

Unlock your iPhone and click on the Settings app.
Scroll down to the Notes and click Password.

Apple will immediately prompt you if you want to set a separate password or use the iPhone passcode.
Select whichever option suits you the most. However, if you choose the custom password, you need to provide a passkey and a hint to it.