Backing Up Notes

[kc2ped]

My Mobile.Me account will expire at the end of the month and I am not inclined to renew it since the main reason I signed up in the first place was for Find My iPhone which is now free.
But I want all of my Notes to be backed up somewhere. I see on the settings page that I can select a default account for my Notes.
If I change this setting from Mobile.Me to Gmail or Yahoo will that cause all my existing notes to be copied there, just notes created after the change, or don't notes get backed up from there?

 

[twerppoet]

I don't recommend using note syncing through iTunes if you have any choice. If you do, make sure you have a good backup first, so that if they get overwritten in the process you can recover them.

It would be better to set up note syncing with an online service. Since you already have GMail, it is an option.

Turning on note in your GMail account will create a new account in the Notes app. You'll get a new account button at the top left above the search bar. It is similar to the way you can switch accounts in Mail.

Your current notes will not be copied or synced to GMail. Also don't expect them to sync to Google's Notepad. Instead they will sync with the Notes folder in your GMail account.

When you remove your MobileMe account, it should offer you the choice of not deleting your current notes. But to be on the safe side, I'd activate the GMail account first, then manually copy and paste your notes from one account to the other.

An even better option is to get Evernote for both your computer and iPad. It has far more utility, and can be accessed from almost any device or computer you like.

Each Evernote account is associated with a mail address that you can send notes to. Once you have the account set up you can mail all your notes to that account right from the Notes app. The notes will show in in your Evernote inbox. After that you can open Evernote and make use the the much greater organizational abilities it has.

 

[Swecodelico]

Default Notes app

Why is it not recommended to sync through iTunes?
I've had an iPhone 4 for 10 months and when I connected my iPad 2 with my PC the first time a month ago, I got all the iPhone apps automatically.
I expected to have the notes transferred from the default Notes app in my iPhone to the iPad, but that wasn't the case.
I tried to find an option in iTunes to do this but it doesn't seem to be possible (or it is possible but I can't find it)

Anyway, I have Evernote so I'll stick to this app for the time being. It's just that I also like the iPad/iPhone Notes app because it's quite simple and easier than others, and I also like the look of it, so I did start using it at some stage.

 

[twerppoet]

Notes are saved in the backup file made when you sync your device. You can only get them back by restoring from the backup. I don't know how well that would work well from an iPhone to an iPad.

When I talked about syncing with iTunes I was talking about notes, calendars, contacts. All stuff you'll find under the Info page when your device is connected to iTunes.

I don't recommend it for a few reasons.

The biggest reason is that your stuff only gets updated when you sync the iPad. If you regularly sync every day, that might not be a problem depending on how much you depend on the data being the same throughout your day.

The other reason is conflicts. If you make a change on the computer, and then later make it on the iPad, when you sync you'll have to resolve the conflict (choose which to use). It's a minor annoyance, but if you make lots of changes on both devices each day, it will turn up every time you sync. This gets worse the more devices you have to keep in sync.

When you use an online source to sync with the changes get made to the server almost immediately. Each device receives those changes as soon as you open the app on that device. That means that all you stuff is the same, with no need to worry about when you last synced or what version is correct.

It's just a better, less hassle way to keep stuff the same on all your devices.

Evernote, btw, is my choice for notes as well. It does all the above and more. No sync needed.

 

[Swecodelico]

Crystal clear! Thanks, twerppoet.