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Lost all my OneNote notes - recovering .bin files?

Anonymous
2020-04-22T06:34:34+00:00

Hi,

while switching phones from Samsung to OnePlus at the early 2020, I lost all my OneNote notes covering about a decade of notes, ideas and memories. I had mainly wrote the notes using mobile phone, but from time to time I visited OneDrive from browser and used to find the notes there also.

Many people have had the similar problem and some have been able to fix it* but for me it hasn't worked. What makes it worse for me is my old phone was completely restored and thus has no backup files in it. And yes, I have searched the notes from OneNote desktop app, have checked recycle bin and what not, but with no help. It only shows a blank, empty OneNote file in all platforms.

However, I have managed to get .bin cache files from my previous laptop, from which I also used OneNote desktop app. They could have something in them, but I'm not sure what to do to them. There was a topic about it but it didn't tell how it ended up and is locked: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/recover-files-of-onenote/5bdb3c77-5a77-425d-8cee-680e76a192d1

So can someone please help me try recover my important notes with the .bin files I found from \OneNote\16.0\cache? There's also a OneNote file \OneNote\16.0\backup, but it is empty as well. Appreciate your help, I've done everything I've found but this horrendous glitch still keeps disturbing me and I miss my notes.

*https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/onenote-not-synching-and-seems-to-have-lost-all-my/8ef94f5f-0581-45da-8f64-56ee28bf0b91?page=2

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-04-22T14:41:08+00:00

    Fiddling around with single .bin files is not feasible.

    Your only chance is to replace the complete C:\Users<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote\16.0**cache**folder in your current installation of OneNote 2016 with the same folder from your old laptop, while OneNote is closed.

    Bernd

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-05-02T14:35:34+00:00

    I'm afraid the problem already existed on OneDrive. Sorry, no more ideas 😥

    Bernd

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-05-02T11:09:25+00:00

    Fiddling around with single .bin files is not feasible.

    Your only chance is to replace the complete C:\Users<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote\16.0**cache**folder in your current installation of OneNote 2016 with the same folder from your old laptop, while OneNote is closed.

    Bernd

    Thanks for helping out, Bernd.

    I manually replaced the cache files in the folder and reopened OneNote 2016. However, everything still looks empty, is there something I have to do manually regarding the cache files? Or to put it other way, how is OneNote supposed to "pick" the cache files from thanks AppData path.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-04-22T07:44:05+00:00

    Hi MertsiMurmann,

    Sorry for the loss that occurred at your end.

    As per your description, we understand you worked on the Notebooks in your Android phone and switching the phone loses all the Notes in your Notebook. But as you mentioned “but from time to time I visited OneDrive from browser and used to find the notes there also”, we would like to know when you access the problematic Notebooks in OneDrive, can you see the Notes changes? If yes, you no need to worry about the loss since they are present in OneDrive Online.

    But, if you’re not seeing them in the OneDrive Online, it seems the changes made in the Notebook via Android phone are not synced properly to the OneDrive and we’re sorry to convey that there is no backup location for the OneNote in the Mobiles or using OneNote for Windows 10.

    Since you’ve mentioned it contains the cache files “.bin”, it will also help you to create the backup for those files in the Backup folder and you also mentioned there the OneNote files in the backup location, can we know whether you’ve tried to open them using the OneNote 2016 for Windows application? If no, we request you try to open them using the OneNote 2016 application because they are locally stored files.

    Moreover, when I tried to work on the .bin files where I tried to open them using Word application and Notepad, the converted content is not readable and even based on my search, many of the OneNote experts even conveyed it’s not possible to recover the content from the cache files and apologies for it.

    In addition, we believe you open the Notebook folder in the Backup locations, just to confirm your statement i.e. opening them is empty, can we know the content of the page is empty? If yes, it means there is no backup created for that Section.

    In this scenario, the only hope is to check in the OneNote Online and check whether it have changes made in the OneNote application on Android.

    Appreciate your patience and understanding.

    Best Regards,

    Chitrahaas

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