If you use the Notes application on your Mac, you probably keep some of your important information there. Sometimes, you will want to back up or recover that information if you somehow lose it. You may wonder where they are stored and how to find their location.
Your notes from the Note application are stored in your home directory under Library and Group Containers and then under group.com.apple.notes. The path to this location is:
~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes
My name is Eric, and as a Software Engineer, I often need to know where certain files from applications are stored. They can sometimes be difficult to find, but with a little investigation, I can usually find them and show you where they are.
I have shown the location of the notes stored by the Note application above, but if you want to see more details and different ways to get there, keep reading below.
Contents
Locate the Notes Using Finder
For most, the Finder application will be the tool that will be easiest to use to find and get to the location of the notes. As mentioned above, the notes are normally located in the following path.
~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes
You can use the path above in our first method using Finder, but if that does not work, you may need to search in Finder, as shown in the second method below.
Go To Folder
If you know the path of where you want to go, you can use the Go to Folder command in Finder to go directly to the folder. Thankfully, we know the path. It is the one I have shown above. Use the ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes and the steps below to get there.
Step 1: Open Finder.
Click on the Finder icon in the lower left corner of your desktop.
Step 2: Select the Go to Folder command from the Go menu.
In Finder, click on the Go menu and then select Go to Folder.
Step 3: Enter the path into the Go to Folder popup window.
Paste or type the path shown below into the text field of the Go to Folder pop-up window.
~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes
Step 4: Select the folder from the results.
Double-click on the path that matches the results, and you will be taken to the folder.
If the folder did not show up in the Go to Folder results, it could be that the notes on your system are stored in a different location for whatever reason. If this is the case, you can do a search for them as described in the next section.
Search
Searching for the folder in Finder is another way to find where the notes are stored. This works especially well if the folder and path shown above do not work. Your notes may be stored in a different location. In this case, we can search for a file that is in the notes folder.
The file called NoteStore.sqlite is the file that saves the notes, and it will be located in the notes folder. So, if we search for this file, we can find the path to the folder or location that stores the notes on your Mac. Use the following steps to search for and find the location.
Step 1: Open Finder.
Open the Finder application if you don’t already have it opened.
Step 2: Click on the search icon.
Click on the search icon in the upper right corner of the Finder window.
Step 3: Enter the file name into the search field.
Copy and paste or type NoteStore.sqlite into the search field.
Step 4: Show the Enclosing Folder
Right-click on the file shown in the results to bring up the context menu, then click on Show in Enclosing Folder.
Once you click on Show in Enclosing Folder, a new Finder window will be opened in the Folder where the notes are stored.
Another way to find and get to the folder that contains the notes is to just use Finder to navigate through the file system to the correct path. Doing this involves clicking on each folder until you get to the final location.
Some folders, such as Group Container, are often hidden folders, so you may not see them as you move down the path. If you do not see the folder you are looking for, try hitting the Shift+Command+. keys, this will display any hidden folders and files located in the current directory.
Hidden folders will be shown in a lighter color text, but you can still go to them by clicking on them as you normally would with any other folder. Follow the steps below to navigate to ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes.
Step 1: Open Finder.
Open the Finder application if you don’t already have it opened.
Step 2: Click on Macintosh HD on the left side of Finder.
Step 3: Double-click on the Users Folder.
Step 4: Double-click on the folder with your username.
Step 5: Display hidden files and folders
Press the Shift, Command and . keys all at the same file to display all hidden folders.
Step 6: Double-click on the Library folder.
Step 7: Double-click on the Group Containers folder
Step 8: Double-click on the group.com.app.notes folder.
You have now navigated to the folder containing notes from the Note application. This method takes a bit longer than the other methods shown above, but navigating to the folder will help you remember its location.
Locate the Notes using Mac Terminal
If you’re like me and you like to use the command line, you may want to try using Mac Terminal to navigate to the folder where notes from the Note application are stored.
Open a Mac Terminal session and run the following cd command to get there from the command line.
cd ~/Library/’Group Containers’/group.com.apple.notes
Notice the single quotes around Group Containers. These quotes are needed since the directory name has a space in it.
If you get errors saying that the directory does not exist, you can do a search for the folder using the find command.
find / -name group.com.apple.notes 2>/dev/null
Once you see the results from the find command, copy and paste the location into a cd command. Again, be sure to put single quotes around any folder that contains spaces in its name.
cd /Users/ericwinkler/Library/’Group Containers’/group.com.apple.notes
Once you hit the return key after entering the cd command, you will be in the directory where your notes are located.
Conclusion
The folder that stores notes from the Note application on your Mac is usually located at ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes. There are a few different ways to get to that location, and I have shown you some of them above.
I hope that the information above can help you to locate your notes. As usual, let me know if you have any questions or feedback. I would love to hear from you.
