OneNote for Android Not Saving Notes

Question

I'm having an issue with my OneNote app for Android not saving notes that I create. The behavior seems pretty random. In general, I will type out a note and I'll go back to it and the note is either completely gone, or only a portion of it is saved.

"For example, imagine this sentence is a note that I'm taking in the app."

I'll go back to it even a few seconds later and it will look something like this...

"For example, imagine this sentence is"

Entire sections of the note will be missing, or the whole note will be gone. I've even had it happen with photos. I'll go back to the notebook and photos I've taken are completely gone.

One interesting thing is that if I type out a note on the app while also looking at the same notebook on my desktop app, I can see everything that I type on my phone showing up on my desktop, and this issue doesn't appear to happen. But, when I don't have the desktop app open, it starts happening again. It's almost like there's some kind of disconnect between what I'm typing and what's being saved to my device. With the desktop app open, it's forcing the note to be saved via syncing.

This has pretty much been a persistent issue with OneNote since I've started using it a couple years ago. I really like all of the features of the app and I'm hoping that there's some kind of solution for this, because the more it happens and the more I keep losing notes that I need, it's making the app completely unreliable and defeating the whole purpose of using it in the first place.

Answer 1

Hi Isabella,

Sorry for stepping in into this thread. I'm facing exactly the same problem on my Pixel 7 Pro (already with Android 14, but also with Android 15 right now). As DGarrett01 is writing, OneNote simply "forgets" some of the changes and this could be really annoying. Example is when writing a shopping list and in the supermarket I find half of it missing. So it's definitely not only Samsung-related, but also on my Google Pixel. Hope this will help for your investigation.

Best regards,

Thomas

Answer 2

#3 is definitely not a good idea while using OneNote.

BTW:

OneNote has no sync in background. I agree with your last sentence, but OneNote does not fulfill this requirement (and never did).

Bernd

Answer 3

Here is how to reproduce the issue:

1. Open OneNote on Android
2. Create new notebook, section and empty page
3. Write two words and quickly terminate OneNote app
4. After reopening OneNote, the page is missing words

Note: Terminate OneNote using the overview button from Android navigation bar.

It may be caused by additional restrictions with background activity in Android. Nevertheless, OneNote should properly handle termination and synchronize the latest changes once opened again.

Answer 4

I'm using version 16.0.17726.20082

From what I've observed, this issue only occurs on my Android phone. Neither my laptop or desktop applications seem to experience this issue.

I'm using an M365 Personal account.

Answer 5

Dear DGarrett01,

Welcome to the Microsoft community.   Based on the information you have shared, I understand that your OneNote on your Android phone seems to lose some of the data of your notes if you check it again after quitting, and I understand how you feel about experiencing this issue for a long time.Based on the issue you described, I tested it on my Android phone as shown below: (30 seconds later):

It's very unfortunate that it didn't re the situation you described. So I would like to know more about it to help you:

• What version of OneNote are you using? The version I tested is:
• Does this occur throughout your laptop?
• Is the OneNote account you are currently using a personal or business account? Looking forward to your further updates and hopefully we can work together to resolve this issue.Thank you for your understanding.

Best wishes  Isabella-MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist