Contact Notes Disappeared When Apple Moved Address Book to Contacts

spnsgeek wrote:

Thanks for the reply. Ok so the OP’s thoughts on why his CONTACT notes (see attached example image) disappeared was incorrect and I never used whatever the Address book app was so you’re correct in that I didn’t understand it’s been gone for a while. However the issue is not some dormant one. It is current.

The problem is that the contact notes are gone and that wasn’t addressed by the first reply or yours.

I understand what your point is. However, I don't have an answer to give you on this.

My thoughts on the matter, which are purely my own speculations, is that not very many people use the notes field in Contacts and therefore, it hasn't been a priority for Apple. You should let them know it's important to you here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Contacts sync to email accounts. You can see which email accounts are syncing to your phone by opening the Contacts app and looking at the Lists screen. It will group contact lists with the account they sync to. Or you can go to Settings/Contacts/Accounts and see which accounts sync Contacts.

The reason this is important is that not all email servers support Notes attached to contacts. If your contacts are either in any of these accounts, or they are moved to one of these accounts that do not support Notes the notes will disappear.

iCloud and Microsoft contacts support Notes. Many other email accounts do not.

My contacts have gone through multiple lives, starting with contacts on an HP-200, imported to a Palm Pilot, then a Palm Treo, and then to my first iPhone in 2007. Amazingly, the contacts first recorded 30 years ago on my HP still have all of their notes; I just went back and checked.

Thanks for the reply. Ok so the OP’s thoughts on why his CONTACT notes (see attached example image) disappeared was incorrect and I never used whatever the Address book app was so you’re correct in that I didn’t understand it’s been gone for a while. However the issue is not some dormant one. It is current.

The problem is that the contact notes are gone and that wasn’t addressed by the first reply or yours.

My point in saying the notes, saved within the contact section reserved for them, disappearing is because it keeps happening and nobody seems to understand that’s what’s being talked about. The assumption in most answers (old or new) from high level members (I know Apple doesn’t involve themselves here) is that the OPs meant the Notes app. That’s not the case.

Here’s a recent question (and yes I commented here too as again the question wasn’t understood and Address book never was raised):

what happened to the notes under contacts? - Apple Community

Bottom line people have completely lost information they’ve put in the notes section of their contacts and even restoring older backups do not work let alone solve the underlying problem.

So, now what…? 🤷🏻‍♂️

Address Book hasn't been around in a very long time....

See, how to import from old address book? - Apple Community

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2786205?sortBy=best

You'll likely need to update manually.

spnsgeek wrote:

Sadly, you clearly did not understand the question and what occurred. Don’t know how the OP could’ve made it any clearer.

I don't think you understand.

They don’t need to restore old address book entries. Apple “Contacts” (such as what is shown in the phone ‘app’) seem to have been overwritten BY information FROM Address Book. In the process of this “merger” (which clearly was not a merge whatsoever- guess an unsupervised neophyte programmer did this) the [Contact] Notes section were wiped. THIS is the information that the OP, myself and many many others need back and are getting absolutely no relevant assistance whatsoever because nobody is actually reading or comprehending the actual issue.

There was no "merger". Apple changed the name of the app years ago so that it would be the same across all devices.

I hope I’ve cleared this up now and welcome any thoughts or suggestions how to proceed because I’m lost… And angry as **** at Apple as looking at other similar questions as found in a Google search indicates this issue has been a problem multiple times over the last 5 years. And Apple has done NOTHING to correct or prevent this happening.

Well, you've cleared up that you want to go finding long dormant posts to vent your spleen. Apple doesn't read here for feedback or suggestions and being rude to fellow users is unseemly. You can let Apple know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Sadly, you clearly did not understand the question and what occurred. Don’t know how the OP could’ve made it any clearer.

They don’t need to restore old address book entries. Apple “Contacts” (such as what is shown in the phone ‘app’) seem to have been overwritten BY information FROM Address Book. In the process of this “merger” (which clearly was not a merge whatsoever- guess an unsupervised neophyte programmer did this) the [Contact] Notes section were wiped. THIS is the information that the OP, myself and many many others need back and are getting absolutely no relevant assistance whatsoever because nobody is actually reading or comprehending the actual issue.

I hope I’ve cleared this up now and welcome any thoughts or suggestions how to proceed because I’m lost… And angry as **** at Apple as looking at other similar questions as found in a Google search indicates this issue has been a problem multiple times over the last 5 years. And Apple has done NOTHING to correct or prevent this happening.

Thanks. I have left feedback but not going to hold my breath… It’s possible not enough folks are using that feature so it won’t get any kind of priority attention though I’m sure there are many many features that the majority of folks don’t use because they don’t even know about them. Of course bugs in those may also not get attention either. Thing is good QA and QC practice should catch such issues.

I see another new recent comment hypothesizing where contacts are synchronized to may be a factor. Totally a good path to investigate which I did and my contacts are synched to multiple servers all which support contact notes based on my review of a random sampling of contacts I know have notes.

Now I need to see if some contacts (my own “My Card” being one that lost them) that are synced to multiple accounts have notes in some but not in others. That’s going to take a while for sure with 500+ contacts. Oy…

Thanks for the suggestion. I haven’t changed any of my contact accounts [that they are synched to] however. They’ve not changed in years and my contact notes have always been persistent. It was the 17.4.1 update that I did a few weeks ago now that caused the problem.

Nevertheless I checked and my contacts are synched to multiple servers all which support contact notes (iCloud, Gmail and Yahoo) based on my review of a random sampling of contacts I know have notes.

Now I need to see if some contacts (my own “My Card” being one - and most important for me - that lost them) that are synced to multiple accounts have notes in some but not in others. That’s going to take a while for sure with 500+ contacts. Oy…