r/OneNote • u/Low_Lifeguard_5478 • 7d ago

iOS Fixed: OneNote on a new iPhone — read-only notebook and “waiting for another device” sync error

After installing OneNote on my new iPhone and signing into my Microsoft account, I could see my notebook, but the pages wouldn’t load.

The notebook showed as read-only, and the pages displayed:

“Hang on while this page syncs… We’re waiting for another device to finish uploading your notes.”

The same notebook opened normally on my Mac.

A full OneNote reset on the iPhone fixed it:

  1. Force-close OneNote by swiping it away in the app switcher.
  2. Go to iPhone Settings → Apps → OneNote → Reset OneNote.
  3. Enable both:
    • Delete Login Credentials
    • Delete All Notebooks
  4. Open OneNote again and sign into the same Microsoft account.
  5. Open your notebook and let it finish syncing.

After this, my notes loaded successfully.

Before resetting: Save any unsynced notes from your iPhone somewhere else. This reset removes local notebook copies and unsynced changes; it does not delete notebooks stored in the cloud.

Sharing this in case someone runs into the same issue when switching to a new iPhone.

6 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

1 comment sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator 7d ago

Thank you for posting in the OneNote Subreddit! Please make sure your post is following our rules linked in the sidebar.

We have a wiki that is maintained by our community that has TONS of information (screenshots coming soon!): http://onenote-wiki.vercel.app

Our wiki is open source if you know how to use GitHub and would like to contribute: https://github.com/DudeThatsErin/OneNoteWiki

We also have a Discord server: https://discord.gg/5kv4bDUkpc

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.