Notes

How to add sticky notes to your iPhone or iPad Home Screen and Lock Screen

Sticky notes on iPhone Lock Screen and Home Screen

Stickies are great for quickly jotting down a short sentence or to-do item. I like having a few sticky notes on my iPhone Home Screen as it makes them always visible and forces my attention. I don't have to go inside any app to see them, which surprisingly often results in finishing the job mentioned in those sticky notes on time.

If you feel the same or want to try it out, here's how to add, edit, and use sticky notes on your iPhone or iPad Home Screen and Lock Screen.

How to use Smart Folders in the Notes app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Smart Folders in Apple Notes app

You can create folders inside the Apple Notes app to organize your writings, to-dos, sketches, and notes. With iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura, you can also create Smart Folders based on certain conditions. Any note that fits those conditions will automatically appear in that Smart Folder.

Smart Folders are an excellent way to have your notes organized and clearly accessible based on tags, date created, date edited, shared, mentions, checklists, attachments, folders, quick notes, pinned notes, and locked notes.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to create and use Smart Folders in the Notes app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

How to fix the Notes app not working or responding on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Sync iCloud Notes on your iPhone

The Apple Notes app, which comes prebuilt in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, is an excellent place to jot notes, to-dos, sketches, and more. Until it stops working!

At times, the iPhone, iPad, and Mac Notes app may freeze and refuse to show you the saved notes. Other times, it may crash the moment you open it. And sometimes, the Notes app may not respond at all to your touches and clicks.

If you're stuck in one of these situations where you can't use the Apple Notes app to create new notes or access existing ones, the following solutions will help.

How to stop specific notes from uploading to iCloud and prevent them from syncing to all your Apple devices

Create offline notes on iPhone and other Apple devices that don't upload to iCloud

iCloud stores your notes and syncs them wirelessly to all your Apple devices. As a result, a note you create in the Notes app on your iPhone immediately syncs to your other iPhone, iPad, Mac, and vice versa.

However, there are situations and some types of notes that you might not want to upload to iCloud and be available everywhere. For example, you may not want to clutter the Notes app on all your devices with some not-so-important notes. Or, it may be a note of a random shopping list that you only want on your iPhone, or a quick sketch you only wish to have on your iPad.

To address such scenarios, here's how to use the local on-device notes account. This keeps those notes offline and prevents them from uploading to iCloud and syncing to all your devices.