OneNote syncing / missing note problem.

Question

Hey everyone, I’m new to OneNote and ran into something frustrating. My OneDrive was full, so I unlinked my account and then added it back. After reconnecting, one of my important notes didn’t come back during the sync and now it’s just gone.

Has anyone dealt with this before? Is there any way to recover a missing note after relinking your account?

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Moved from: Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | For business | Android

Answer 1

Hello @Mason Copeland,  

Thank you for reaching out to the Q&A forum! 

Based on what you described, it’s very likely that the missing note only existed locally on your device during the time OneDrive was full.  

Therefore, when you unlinked and then relinked your account, OneNote synced data from OneDrive. Since the note was never synced to OneDrive, it doesn’t exist in the cloud data and cannot be automatically restored. 

To confirm, could you please let me know where you unlinked the account: Was it on the desktop app or on a mobile device (Android)? 

• If you only lost one page in a notebook that still exists, you can open that notebook in desktop app and go to History => Notebook Recycle Bin to check. 

• If you lost the entire notebook, recovery depends on the device you were using. 

On Windows: You can try checking the backup folder:  

C:\Users<YourUserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote\Backup

 

On Android: You can only check the app’s cache or any offline copy stored locally. 

As mentioned earlier, if you don’t find the note in any of these places, unfortunately it was never synced and there’s no copy to restore. 

So, to avoid data loss in the future, I recommend making sure OneDrive always has enough storage space so your notes can sync properly, verifying the sync status before unlinking or switching accounts to ensure all recent changes are uploaded 

Once again, thank you again for raising this issue; it’s helped broaden my understanding. I hope you understand that I want to help as much as I can within the scope of this forum.    

Looking forward to hearing from you! 

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