How to recover an accidentally changed note?

[Nanshan 0]

The note is saved automatically when we type in. So how could I change it back if the note is altered mistakenly?

[Colin 13]

View/ Note History

[GrumpyMonkey 4,314]

View/ Note History

Yes, and no. It only saves a note history every 8 hours or so. This can result in a note not existing yet or changes falling in-between the times. If you are on a desktop, I recommend regular Time Machine backups. It doesn't hurt to copy/paste into a new note when making changes to something important. This produces versions of a note that can be useful or deleted later.

[Wern 244]

If you are still typing your note and found that there are mistakes, you can use good old "Ctrl-Z" (Win) and undo your last steps.

Wern

[Gary S 2]

If the content you accidentally deleted was on an iOS device (iPhone, iPad or iPod touch) *and* is old enough to have been in your last backup of your device in iTunes, then you can use a desktop/laptop computer application called iBackupBot to recover the lost data.  iBackupBot for iTunes on Windows or Mac costs US$34.95, but you can download and install the trial version for free (but it's so good, after I used it to recover my lost partial content today, I just purchased it).

iBackupBot allows you to access the latest iTunes backup of your iOS device and access individual files in that backup.  Once you've installed iBackupBot, open it and go to the Evernote documents (User App Files > Evernote > Library > Private Documents > www.evernote.com > (some number: mine is 49355362) > content).  You will see a list of all Note documents.  But the filenames are a long string of what looks like hexadecimal digits and therefore for all intents and purposes are encrypted to you (e.g. ed279ba8-29d1-4d0f-a038-e16f1b326939):  they are actually folders, because each Evernote document is a combination of the Note file plus all embedded images stored externally as individual JPG, etc. files.

So you will have to select the folders one at a time and use the Modified date on each file in there to help you find your file (that's the fastest way I could figure out at this point to find your document).  Double-click any image file to view it or any Note file to view it.  Note files are just text files containing HTML code--the language of the world wide web, which is how Evernote implements its documents I guess.  So you may have to scroll down any Note document you open in order to find any actual text to look at to see if it is your document.  If not, close it and go to the next folder.  It may be a long a tedious process, but it's worth it.

When you find your document, select all the content (e.g. Ctrl-A, i.e. select all the HTML code in that document, from the top to the bottom), copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl-C), create a new text file in your favorite text editor on your computer, and paste (Ctrl-V) and save the contents of the clipboard into that new text file.  Then rename the text file, changing the extention from ".txt" to ".htm" (a web file).  Then just open it in a web browser (e.g. in Windows you can either double-click it or right click the file and choose to open it in Firefox).  Then select the text you want to recover, paste it into a new email message, and email it to yourself.

Back on your iOS device, copy that email's contents and paste it into the Evernote document you lost it in.

Good luck,
Gary

[sherryG 1]

I just found out my most important note got wiped out somehow with only few lines left, after some desperate research, I followed the tips from Gary S, and am able to recover the entire note!

Try iBackupBot!

Thanks Gary for sharing!

[Gary S 2]

On September 30, 2016 at 7:16 PM, sherryG said:

I just found out my most important note got wiped out somehow with only few lines left, after some desperate research, I followed the tips from Gary S, and am able to recover the entire note!

Try iBackupBot!

Thanks Gary for sharing!

My pleasure, Sherry.  I'm glad you recovered your note.  All the best, Gary

[Gizmofo 0]

On 8/29/2012 at 6:17 PM, Colin said:

View/ Note History

Thanks very much for this -- you bailed me out, big time.

[Deanp 3]

Same thing happened to me using Evernote Desktop for Windows - a few missed keystrokes and my entire note disappeared. Cntrl-Z to undo didn't work. 

Here is what I did to recover it.

* I simply logged into my Evernote.com account in my browser,
* Opened the note in question (which hadn't been synced yet)
* Copied the contents of the note to my clipboard
* Pasted the contents back into the note on Evernote Desktop

Thanks for not syncing very quickly Evernote!

[CalS 5,013]

3 minutes ago, Deanp said:

Thanks for not syncing very quickly Evernote!

Thank yourself!  Your sync settings and quick thinking enabled this.

[Deanp 3]

20 minutes ago, csihilling said:

Thank yourself!  Your sync settings and quick thinking enabled this.

I guess you are right - I have my sync frequency (Tools | Options | Synchronization) set to "Every 15 minutes", and I caught it quickly enough that it hadn't happened yet. 

Just for future reference, should I have closed Evernote Desktop to prevent syncing once I realized my note content had disappeared, or would that have triggered an automatic sync?

I presume the latter, but just want to be sure in case it ever happens again.

Thanks.

 

[CalS 5,013]

2 minutes ago, Deanp said:

I guess you are right - I have my sync frequency (Tools | Options | Synchronization) set to "Every 15 minutes", and I caught it quickly enough that it hadn't happened yet. 

Just for future reference, should I have closed Evernote Desktop to prevent syncing once I realized my note content had disappeared, or would that have triggered an automatic sync?

I presume the latter, but just want to be sure in case it ever happens again.

Thanks.

 

Check your options and be sure Synchronize changes on exit is not checked and you would be okay.  Also, you don't want to have Enable instant sync checked.

[jmmyhnsn 0]

This same thing happened to me!

Accidentally deleted all of my important copy...in one click.

I did manage to get mine back, however.

I recently activated a new iPhone. I kept my old phone and turned it on AWAY from my home internet so the app could not sync with the newly deleted note.

I opened the app, and boom, all my content was still there on my old phone. Copy and paste! I got lucky, but figured this might help someone.

[KimboSlice 0]

 

On 8/30/2012 at 1:17 AM, Colin said:

View/ Note History

This saved my life, THANK YOU everyone.

[anasazi4st 0]

I had this same thing happen to me, accidentally deleted a Note on my iPad 7th Gen. I went into Evernote.com and on the left is a TRASH icon. I was able to open the deleted note, and there was an option to Restore it.

I am a Premium member, so I don’t know if this is an option or not for everyone.