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If you can't find some of your OneNote notes, it doesn't mean they're gone. Notes can end up in one of several places.

What version of OneNote do I have?

If your application looks like this, choose the Windows 10 app tab above for instructions on how to find your notes.

If your application looks like this, these instructions are for you.

Shows the OneNote for Windows 10 window Shows the OneNote Windows desktop window

To learn more, see What's the difference between the OneNote versions?

If you're having trouble finding your notes in OneNote 2016 or 2013, try any of the following:

The quickest and easiest way to find anything again in OneNote is by searching for it. OneNote can find words in text, handwriting, pictures—even audio and video recordings.

  1. In the search box in the upper-right corner, select the arrow to the right of the magnifying glass icon, and in the list that appears, choose All notebooks.

    Note: If you prefer using keyboard shortcuts, you can press Ctrl+E to expand your search to all notebooks.

  2. In the search box, type a keyword or phrase.

    Use Search to look for notes anywhere in OneNote.

  3. As you type, OneNote begins returning page results that match your search word or phrase. Choose a search result to retrieve the matching note.

  4. When you're finished your search, press Esc.

Note: Password-protected sections aren't included in notebook searches. To include a protected section in a search, you'll have to unlock the section first.

Search for words in audio and video clips

OneNote can recognize spoken words in audio and video recordings if Audio Search is turned on. This option is turned off by default because it slows down searching.

To turn on Audio Search:

  1. Choose File > Options > Audio & Video.

  2. Under Audio Search, select the Enable searching audio and video recordings for words check box and click OK.

If your notes are stored in a notebook that you've previously closed, you'll need to open it again so those notes are included in your searches.

  1. Choose File > Open.

  2. Under Recent Notebooks, choose the notebook you'd like to open.

  3. Look through the sections and pages of your reopened notebooks, or perform another notebook search.

If you upgraded to OneNote 2016 from a previous version, some of your notes may have been collected in a special section called Quick Notes. Prior to OneNote 2013, this section was called Unfiled Notes. In either case, check to see if such a section exists in your default notebook.

  1. Open the Notebook pane by clicking the name of your current notebook, shown on the left side just underneath the ribbon. (Skip this step if you have the Notebook pane docked to the screen.)

  2. At the bottom of the Notebook pane, choose Quick Notes.

  3. In the Quick Notes section, choose the section tabs at the top or the page tabs on the right to browse through any notes that OneNote may have collected here.

Note: Typically, random notes stored in the Quick Notes section are included in an all-notebooks search. However, if you've moved this section to another notebook that's since been closed, it won't be included in the search results.

If you're working in one or more shared notebooks that are stored on OneDrive, OneNote may not be syncing correctly to such shared locations. Syncing shared notebooks manually will help you figure out if there's a problem.

  1. Open the shared notebook where you expected to see your missing notes.

  2. Choose File > View Sync Status.

  3. In the Shared Notebook Synchronization dialog box, make sure that the Sync automatically whenever there are changes option is selected.

  4. Choose Sync All.

If you see any error messages for any of the shared notebooks in your list, click the Get Help button next to each to begin troubleshooting the problem. Unless you resolve any sync errors, you won't see notes others have added to the shared notebook, and you won't see notes that you've added from other computers or devices.

If you suspect that your notes are on OneDrive and searching for them in OneNote hasn't worked, try to locate them in your OneDrive folders directly, without using OneNote.

  1. Sign in to your OneDrive account from the OneDrive home page or by using the OneDrive app for Windows 10.

  2. Browse through your OneDrive folders (for example, Documents or Notebooks) for any notebook files you're looking for.

  3. When you've found the notebook you want, click to open it in OneNote for the web.

  4. In OneNote for the web, click Open in OneNote.

If you've tried all the steps above and you still haven't found your notes, perhaps you—or someone else with access to your notebooks—deleted them. Fortunately, OneNote automatically saves notes for a limited time after they have been deleted from shared notebook so you can try to recover them.

  1. Open the shared notebook where you expected to find the lost notes.

  2. Choose History > Notebook Recycle Bin > Notebook Recycle Bin.

If you find your deleted notes here, you can recover them by moving the pages back to their intended locations:

  1. Right-click the tab of any page that you want to recover, and then choose Move or Copy.

  2. In the Move or Copy Pages dialog box, choose the notebook section where you want to move the page, and then choose Move. If you want to move the page to a section in another notebook, first click the + (plus) sign next to that notebook in the list, and then select a section within it.

  3. Repeat steps 1-2 with any other pages that you want to move out of the Notebook Recycle Bin.

More help

If the suggestions in this article didn't help you recover notes that you're sure you lost, consider reporting the issue on the OneNote forums on Microsoft Answers. Another customer may have run into the same issue or a member of the OneNote product team may be able to help.

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