One note data loss issue during Sync

Question

I have been using Onenote quite few years on my same mac where I may have logged in onenote quite a while ago. recently, due to some mac patch, I have to restart my mac, before restart I was expected to close all applications including onenote, I sigend out, Infact I remeber when I was closing there was some popup realted to synch issue, I click couple of sign in button in that popup window but nothing happend, so eventually I closed Onenote all notebook, after restart I tried to login again with same credentaills and I was surpise to see that all my latest notes and updates on existing notes are not there, I lost almost 1 yr worth of data. So my understanding is onenote was not synching with onedrive file since long, but I have't notice that, I am assumping onenote must be saving my latest stuff somewhere locally, and when after restart when I logged in onenote, it picks my old copy of notes sitting in onedrive. 

So, question is Where on my local machine onenote saving my current notes? Are there any way to recover my notes from local storage wherever onenote was saving those update as onedrive notes are one year old almost. Please advise urgently on this matter.

Answer 1

Hi Waqas,

I have time machine setup at my mac, I can definitely see the old backup, I have restored backup from time machine for said folder above, after that OneNote start crashing, it won't open and keep complaining. I got the logs file but its too big to paste here. In-fact I restarted mac but oneNote keep crashing and problem won't go, then I restore the same directory with today backup and OneNote got started but I am again back to square where I don't see my latest notes, I lost almost one year wroth of data, the last data what I see in oneDrive is March-2021. I really need urgent help on this.

regards

Manish

Answer 2

Hi Money13,

Thanks for your valuable feedback and sharing updates with us and I really appreciate your effort and your precious time doing. First, please accept my apologize (its my humbly request please don't mind) because you meet such an issue and I understand it effort on your daily work.

And I appreciate your kind words.

Regarding to, "Now questions is how to restore these files." as I'm really really afraid to recovery OneNote file from .bin file(recover the notes from cache) . Howevey, I found after my search one user mentioned (you may also try) exit OneNote and restore the files and The cache is stored at ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.onenote.mac/Data/Library/Application Support/Microsoft User Data/OneNote/ .OneNote opens up and can see all of old data.

But the way is If you have set up time machine on your Mac, you can restore your Mac and see if the notes is available.

I appreciate your understanding and stay safe!!

Best regards

Waqas Muhammad

Answer 3

Also, I thought I may be using my office email address for onenote where I do have access to business version of onenote, but now I just noticed I was storing all notes using my personal hotmail email id, so its not business email id which I suppose to use. I will correct that later but first and foremost I need to restore all notes from cache to onenote software please advise how to do that.

Answer 4

Thanks Waqas, Much appreciated your reply.

I can find the "cache" folder what you suggested above. It has almost 218 files with all .bin extension. It also have a child folder called "tmp" which has similar 306 files with .bin extension.

I am sure these are my files which are not synch with OneDrive. Now questions is how to restore these files. How to force OneNote to read these notes from my local first and then force synch to one drive.

Your help much appreciated.

Answer 5

Hi Money13,

First, my pleasure to assist you.

As per your description, please don’t worry, we can work together to narrow down and resolve the situation.

Regarding to, “question is Where on my local machine onenote saving my current notes?” The "local" copy is a cache file where OneNote stores the notes before syncing them. The caching mechanism is used locally. New/modified notes are saved in the cache file before being synchronized to onedrive.com to store. The cache is stored at ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.onenote.mac/Data/Library/Application Support/Microsoft User Data/OneNote/(It is not readable, except by OneNote).

For reference: Frequently Asked Questions about OneNote for Mac

Also, have you tried to recover your data using Time Machine Backup? go into the Time Machine, back in time, and see the ~/Library/Containers/com.microsfot.onenote.mac files from different dates.

Generally, OneNote for Mac OS is sync to Microsoft OneDrive account (OneNote for Mac continually syncs all of your notes with OneDrive) and the OneNote notes cannot be found in OneDrive online location.

If the notes cannot be found in OneDrive online location and if you are using Office 365 business subscription, if you don’t mind( my humbly request please don’t mind) please I request you don't mind and contact your admin as soon as possible to let the admin contact our Microsoft Support to request a restore because we retain backups of all content for 14 additional days.

Also please check if you have shared the notebook with anyone else? If yes, please check if others can have this notebook with data.

In the meantime, for some reason, you still cannot recover your OneNote notebook, to avoid this situation and avoid data loss in the future please back up your notes to Word or other places first.

I appreciate your understanding and stay safe!!

Best regards

Waqas Muhammad