IPhone – way to save notes to the iPhone itself and not to any account for syncing

data synchronizationicloudiphonenotes.app

On the iPhone and presumably applies to the iPad as well, running iOS 5.1.1.

Right now, I've got my iCloud and Gmail account on my phone syncing everything including notes. When creating a note using the stock Notes app, notes are saved to my default account (which happens to be my Gmail account). However, I would like to save some notes to the phone itself and not synced with any account. I do not see an option to explicitly enable this option.

But I've also discovered a funny quirk that seems to allow this option to unexpectedly show up:

  1. Disable the syncing of notes for all accounts
  2. Add a note (which I'll refer to as "the note") to the Notes app (making sure there are no existing notes)
  3. Re-enable notes syncing with accounts
  4. Go back to Notes and the option to save to the iPhone only will show up

Quirk: Delete the note, reopen the Notes app, and that option to save to your iPhone only disappears.

Is this supposed to be normal? Is there a way to keep the "On My iPhone" option on at all times?

Best Answer

In Notes.app when you are in the "On this iPhone" section, any notes you create will exist only on the phone (not synced with google or iCloud). The option disappears when all your notes are synced, presumably to encourage you to save to iCloud by default, but the solution is simply to leave one in the "on this iPhone" folder.