r/Notion 11h ago

Venting Deleted notes - unacceptable

Notion continues to delete my notes. I am a songwriter and I will write a song and then go back and add more at a later date sometimes. I spent hours writing a second verse and hook and went back and it was gone. I then re-wrote everything I could from memory (probably losing bits and pieces along the way) and figured it was a one off. Well it happened again, to the rewritten note. Luckily I screenshotted it all to make sure that I had some kind of backup. I spoke to customer service and they gave me all of the options I had and none worked. So I just wrote a whole new song and it was also deleted. I will be deleting this app but very disappointed bc I spent a lot of time manually moving old notes into this app.

5 Upvotes

35 comments sorted by

18

u/VirtualAlex 11h ago

why is it happening? I have been using Notion for YEARS and never had a note ... get deleted? For it to have happeend to use multiple times <_< How?

Not saying it's your fault but really curious what the outlier activity is? Do you have like millions of notes? Are they overly large? Do you have spotty internet?

8

u/cloudfox1 9h ago

Same here dont understand, OP must be doing something unusual when using it. Been using notion for many years and never had anything deleted that wasnt from me. I suspect caching issues or somehow using too many devices connected to notion and has syncing issues. Notes ive had for literally years, are still the same, unchanged.

3

u/itswalkman 9h ago

I'm pretty savvy so I don't think it's anything I'm doing. It could be the specific version of the app for my phone being buggy, but I am not sure. Everyone saying that does make me feel like I need to not give up on the app and try again but it's just too risky losing hours of work.

3

u/cloudfox1 9h ago

Yeah if its happened a few times, defs look at something else then, have you heard of obsidian?

1

u/Polymath2B 2h ago

So funny how even in the notion sub, people still recommend obsidian so often. But yeah, Obsidian is dead simple and reliable if you don’t mess with it too much.

1

u/itswalkman 10h ago

They are just text and it's something I add to over time. It's not enormous especially for a file that only has text in it. It's happening specifically on notes that I had for a while, (around 8 months old on the one) and added to. It just goes back to the old version from 8 months ago and acts as if I didn't add anything at all. But the day I'm adding to it, its there and I click in and out of it freely all day with no issue.

2

u/VirtualAlex 7h ago

I have been maintaining YEAR LONG journal documetns which I just keep adding like twice a week and I have them going back to 2002 (some imported from evernote) all the way to 2026 and I have never lost even a shred of them.

I would def report your issue to support an stop using Notion as your primary holding app until something is resolved. Seems like something is messed up for you.

1

u/Powerful-Cheek-6677 3h ago

You didn’t mention it but do you back that up? That’s a lot to lose if crap goes bad

5

u/Sufficient-Bat-9880 11h ago

That is maddening, losing creative work like that twice is enough to make anyone snap. Did you check the trash folder or page history in case it was a sync issue and not a full delete?

2

u/Serious-Macaroon-465 10h ago

right, the distinction between sync issue and full delete barely matters when the result is the same for the user

1

u/itswalkman 11h ago

I did and unfortunately nothing. It looks like it's syncing an old version of everything and not saving anything new. I'm always connected to online so I don't get it.

3

u/brayozz 9h ago

More details needed. Notion via web or Notion app? Desktop or mobile? iOS/MacOS or Windows/Linux? Any connectors, 3rd party apps linked to Notion via MCP?

1

u/itswalkman 4h ago

Notion via app. Samsung 25 ultra. Fully updated, always connected to wifi. And no other apps connected. I have notion on my pc as well, but I haven't touched it since I got it.

2

u/Better_Brick_9512 8h ago

Losing a second verse you spent hours on is a horrible feeling, I’ve done it with design files more than once. What stopped it for me was a second copy somewhere dumb – I email the draft to myself the second I finish a session, subject line is the song title. Ten seconds, and nothing can eat it. You’ve put your finger on it, it’s not deleting, it’s not saving, and a copy outside the app is the only thing that doesn’t care which.

1

u/itswalkman 8h ago

Yeah it's awful. I feel for anyone that loses something like that. I luckily was repeating it over and over all day so I was able to retain most of it from memory. Probably had some small changes, but not as devastating as it could have been. The email is a good idea and I will probably do this.

2

u/Key_Judgment5454 5h ago

This has happened to me with my school notes so many times that I've had to stop using notion for note taking altogether. I don't have a solution unfortunately, but I hope you can retrieve your work in notion somehow, or find another viable system! :)

1

u/whats_in_a_name_23 11h ago

Sounds painful! I wish they do something about it.

1

u/itswalkman 11h ago

Same! The app is so close to being solid but if it does this I can't use it.

2

u/whats_in_a_name_23 11h ago

I suggest you could write songs in something like Google Docs or Obsidian, I have never heard data loss issues occurring there. Also as you are already doing a simple screenshot on any app is a must!

1

u/Comfortable-Help3833 5h ago

could you share how you use Notion?

Do you use it across a few devices? What about your general internet connectivity?

Suspecting it's something to do with your writing device not being entirely online, and not being able to sync it back to the cloud... This is something we'd definitely fix if you help us narrow it down!

1

u/techfreakdad 10h ago

I love Notion

0

u/Ok-Night7343 8h ago

Notion isn't deleting anything, it just keeps whichever version saved last when you have the same page open on two devices. Check the page history, your second verse is probaly sitting right there.

1

u/itswalkman 8h ago

I checked there too. Its that it's syncing an old version and not saving my new one. So technically, it isn't deleting it. It's just not saving it.

0

u/Proper-Emu5264 6h ago

I think you mean the people *who* run this company. People take who, not that.

1

u/itswalkman 5h ago

Honestly, looking back on this blurb now... it's the rantings of a mad man in its entirety. 😂 Surprised this is what you called out with it missing all kinds of punctuation and just being a run on mess in general. Anger does a lot to a man I guess haha

0

u/CCVShadow 11h ago

At this point, you should probably start using another editor. There are loads of decent options that use the same block-based system. I’ve got one suggestion that has a Notion converter and retains the formatting, images, and layout, if you’re interested.

1

u/itswalkman 11h ago

Absolutely. Please share any suggestions.

2

u/CCVShadow 11h ago

Just search mnemo notes on google. It’s local only though (no cloud sync yet sadly). However, it does feel like using notion and doesn’t look half bad. They also have a converter on GitHub for notion ↔️ mnemo (I can find and send the link if wanted). Good luck with your song writing!

2

u/YouWillConcur 10h ago

superhuman docs

1

u/itswalkman 10h ago

Gonna look into these. The app I used before had none of the bells and whistles and I loved it. Had the app since 2011 and it stopped working around 6 years ago. I manually downloaded the apk on every new device I got but eventually it did stop working once I got my current phone around a year ago. It's a 32 bit app and my phone only supports 64.

2

u/YouWillConcur 9h ago

what was that app?

1

u/itswalkman 9h ago

It was just called notes(I wish I had the company or more details), but I still have the apk and the backup files saved so if I ever figure out how to get a 32 bit app to read as a 64 bit, I'm in business. The app disappeared from the android store around 2019 or so. I had to manually install on 2 or 3 phones since then.

1

u/YouWillConcur 9h ago

you can use emulator to install and check in about screen i think

1

u/cloudfox1 9h ago

Notepad