I was unable to open my one note since last 2 days and had to uninstall and reinstall it on my iPad. However, on religion, I have lost 3 pages in one of my notebook and nothing is visible in recycle bin.

Question

I have a notebook wherein I take notes for my competitive exams. Therein, I had one section which I created on 1st December 2025 and used it till 19th Dec 2025 when it suddenly stopped working. I tried to reload it but it did not work and hence I uninstalled the app on 21st Dec with the intent to reinstall it so as to fix the bug. Once I did it and tried to restore the notebook, all other sections got restored but 3 pages in one section are lost. While the section exists but the pages are missing and even though the One Drive app shows the section was created on 1st December, the pages till today are missing and nowhere go be found. I need urgent help for my exam preparation or it would affect me big time. (moved from: Microsoft 365 and Office | Microsoft Forms | For education)

Answer 1

Hello @Shubh Naik,  

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

I truly appreciate the effort you’ve put into trying to recover your notes, and it's great news that most of your content has been restored. However, I understand those 3 missing pages are very important to you. 

You mentioned that you didn’t see them in Recycle Bin. Could you confirm if you have opened that notebook in the desktop app and checked under History => Notebook Recycle Bin? If not, you can try that first. 

Additionally, if your notebook is stored on OneDrive, I recommend checking the Version History on OneDrive web for the section file to see if an earlier version contains those pages.

 

I’m not sure whether you’re using MacOS or Window for your PC, but if you’re on Windows, you can also try checking the local backup folder here: 

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

 

If you don’t find the note in any of these places, unfortunately it was likely not synced and there’s no copy available to restore. I’m truly sorry about this.

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However, if you would like our higher-level technical team to investigate further, please confirm: 

I noticed you tagged Education, so is your account managed by your school/organization, or is it a personal account (such as @hotmail.com or @outlook.com)? 

Once I have this information, I can guide you on how to reach out to our advanced technical support team. 

Please understand that our initial response may not always resolve the issue immediately. However, with your help and more detailed information, we can work together to identify the root cause and find a solution.      

Looking forward to hearing from you. 

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Answer 2

Hello Ma'am, thank you for your immediate and proactive response. I would like to inform you that I have been using one drive application on my iPad generation 9 and I tried looking for any files in the recycle bin in one drive but to no avail. Further, I tried to look for an option of restore version in one drive and one note on my iPad but could not find any option relating to restore history at any place. The section of the notebook under question continues to be 1st December but the pages are missing while the sync mode was on. It would be of immense help if the technical team can take this up further. Lastly, while this is for education, the account is my personal account.

Answer 3

Hello Shubh Naik,

Thank you for reaching out in Microsoft Q&A forum

I understand that you’re using OneNote on your iPad, and even though the section still appears, the pages you worked on between December 1 and 19 have gone missing, and you’re unable to find any recycle bin or version‑history options to recover them.

Everything you're describing is consistent with local iPad data being lost during the app reinstall if it wasn’t fully synced before uninstalling. But there are still a few recovery paths we can try, and they must be done outside the iPad.

Option 1. Try OneNote Online

Please open this in Safari or any browser on your iPad: https://www.onenote.com

Then:

Check 1: Missing pages

Open your notebook → go to the section → see if the pages appear.

Check 2: Deleted Notes

From OneNote Online:

• Select View > Deleted Notes (or History > Deleted Notes, depending on your view)

This is the only place deleted pages would appear.

Option 2. Try OneDrive version history from a browser (not the app)

The OneDrive app cannot show version history, but the website can.

Please try opening: https://onedrive.com

Then:

1. Navigate to the folder where your notebook is saved
2. Locate the affected .one section file
3. Click the three dots (…)
4. Select Version History

You're specifically looking for versions from Dec 1–19.

If neither OneNote Online nor OneDrive.com shows older versions:

Then unfortunately the pages may not have synced to the cloud before the app was reinstalled.

On iPad:

• OneNote stores local-only pages
• If the app is deleted, unsynced local pages are permanently removed

Since you're using a personal account, you can contact support using: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote

Let me know if you need further help

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Answer 4

Hello Alex,

Thank you for your response. I tried all the available options at my end but could not restore the deleted files through any platform. I looked for all plausible options but none of them worked. I humbly request you to please approach the Microsoft team to use their database to restore the files missing because i really do not understand how come the pages were not synced since i have opted for automatic sync option since the very beginning.