Move your ColorNote notes to an iPhone

Before you switch phones

1. On the Android phone, make a backup in ColorNote and send the .backup file to yourself. The steps, with the password.
2. Take the lock off any notes you locked in ColorNote first, and make the backup after that: locked notes keep their text encrypted with your lock, so only their titles would come across.
3. Keep the Android phone until you have checked that the notes arrived.

With a Mac: every note in one step

Notes on a Mac imports Markdown, text, RTF, HTML and Evernote's ENEX files. Apple's guide describes the import; it keeps going to iCloud like any other note.

1. Open your backup in the ColorNote backup viewer and, in Save and move, save the iPhone pack (part of Pro). Unzip it on the Mac.
2. Open Notes on the Mac and click a folder in your iCloud account.
3. Choose File > Import to Notes, select ColorNote notes.enex and click Import. The file carries each note's dates, and each note's details are also in its last line.
4. To keep your ColorNote folders instead, choose File > Import to Notes, select the Markdown notes folder, turn on Preserve folder structure on import (under Options) and click Import.
5. The notes appear in a folder called Imported Notes. On the iPhone, with iCloud turned on for Notes, they appear in Notes too.

With only an iPhone

Notes on the iPhone has no way to import a set of files. What works:

• Open the backup on any computer, copy the notes you need one by one (the free version copies any note) and paste them into Notes, for example through an email to yourself or a note shared with iCloud.
• Save the pack to the iPhone's Files app: every note is a text file you can open and read there, and copy from when you need it.
• If you can borrow any Mac signed in to your Apple Account for ten minutes, the steps above move everything at once.

What comes across

ColorNote	In Apple Notes
Title and text	Yes: the first line becomes the note's title
Dates made and changed	In the ENEX file and in each note's last line
Checklists	As a list with boxes written in Markdown or Evernote's format; how Notes shows them depends on its version
Folders	Yes, with the Markdown folder and "Preserve folder structure on import"
Note colours	No colours in Apple Notes; each note's colour is written in its last line
Reminders	Written in the note's last line; set them again in Reminders
Locked notes	Title only, unless you take the lock off in ColorNote before the backup

Open your backup

Sources

• Apple: Import, export, and print notes on Mac (file types, the Import to Notes menu, the Imported Notes folder and the folder-structure option; checked 22 October 2026)
• ColorNote help: Are there ColorNote versions for other OS besides Android? (Android only; checked 22 October 2026)

Notelift is an independent tool by Peak Apps Studio and is not affiliated with ColorNote, Social & Mobile, Inc. or Apple.