# Synchronization Deleted most of my Notes

**URL:** <https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/synchronization-deleted-most-of-my-notes/47962>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [28 November 2025 14:37 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/synchronization-deleted-most-of-my-notes/47962 "2025-11-28T14:37:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![joplinuser47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8c91f0/32.png) [@joplinuser47](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/joplinuser47)\
**Post date:** [28 November 2025 14:37 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/synchronization-deleted-most-of-my-notes/47962/1 "2025-11-28T14:37:08Z")

</div>

### Operating system

Linux

### Joplin version

2.12.19

### Desktop version info

Joplin 2.12.19 (prod, linux)

Client-ID: f375b100d5f64d08a39927faed58d4e8  
Sync-Version: 3  
Profil-Version: 43  
Unterstützter Schlüsselbund: Nein

### Sync target

File system

### What issue do you have?

A while ago i had set up file system synchronization to backup my notes. It didn't work that well (tried to backup into a mounted NAS directory), but whenever it failed i got the fail-save error message that prevented the (empty) remote directory to overwrite my files. Until today. I created two more notes and then shutdown my PC. When i booted it up later, the two notes were still there, but everything else was gone. I traced the logfile and it seems to me that for some reason the backup sync decided to actually overwrite my local files with the empty remote directory this time. I checked my config, but the checkbox preventing an empty overwrite is still set. So my question is: Is there anything i can do to retrieve all the notes i collected in the last 18 months or are they gone forever?

### Log file

[log.txt](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/uploads/short-url/hbrE6C4SptXrJ7QTJOdVskEtIl7.txt) (6.51 MB)

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**Author:** ![tomasz86](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/96bed5/32.png) [@tomasz86](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/tomasz86)\
**Post date:** [28 November 2025 15:03 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/synchronization-deleted-most-of-my-notes/47962/2 "2025-11-28T15:03:54Z")

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Current versions of Joplin have a backup plugin build into them, which is enabled by default, making it possible to restore accidentally deleted notes. The problem is that your Joplin version is heavily outdated, and judging by the posted information, you've got no plugins installed whatsoever, so unfortunately, I don't think you can restore the notes ☹ (unless you go into data recovery and manage to recover actual MD files, but even then, unless you restore literally everything in its original state, you will likely need to open them in a text editor and copy the content manually).

---

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**Author:** ![personalizedrefriger](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/discourse.joplinapp.org/personalizedrefriger/32/13210_2.png) [@personalizedrefriger](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/personalizedrefriger)\
**Post date:** [28 November 2025 16:58 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/synchronization-deleted-most-of-my-notes/47962/3 "2025-11-28T16:58:28Z")

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> [@joplinuser47](#):
>
> So my question is: Is there anything i can do to retrieve all the notes i collected in the last 18 months or are they gone forever?

Even with older versions of Joplin, it may be possible to recover recently deleted items from the database.

This requires the `sqlite3` command and a Joplin profile in `~/.config/joplin-desktop/`.

From a terminal:

1. **Important** : Create a backup of the Joplin profile directory

```shell
bash$ cp -r ~/.config/joplin-desktop/ ~/.config/joplin-desktop.backup/

```

2. Open the Joplin profile directory.

```shell
bash$ cd ~/.config/joplin-desktop/

```

3. Make a copy of the database:

```shell
bash$ cp ./database.sqlite ./db-copy.sqlite

```

4. If Joplin is running, fully quit Joplin.
5. Run the SQLite3 recovery tool (see the [relevant SQLite documentation](https://sqlite.org/recovery.html)):

```shell
bash$ sqlite3 db-copy.sqlite ".recover --ignore-freelist" > recovered.sql

```

6. Inspect `recovered.sql`. Some of the `INSERT INTO` queries may include text from the deleted items.
7. Either:
  - Manually copy/paste the deleted items from `recovered.sql` into a new location or,
  - Attempt to reconstruct the database:

```bash
bash$ sqlite3 recovered.sqlite <recovered.sql
bash$ mv database.sqlite database.old.sqlite && mv recovered.sqlite database.sqlite

```

Then start Joplin.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![laurent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@laurent](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/laurent)\
**Post date:** [28 November 2025 17:18 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/synchronization-deleted-most-of-my-notes/47962/4 "2025-11-28T17:18:50Z")

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Also please check this post as several other methods to recover notes are described:

> [@How to recover your notes](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/how-to-recover-your-notes/46201):
>
> If you lost notes or content, there are multiple ways to recover them: From the note history If the note is still there but doesn't have the content you expect, you may be able to restore it using the Note History feature. In the desktop app, click on the "i" button, then click on "Note revisions". From there, see if you can restore the content. From the trash If you manually delete a note or notebook, it will be moved to the trash folder - check if it's there. From the built-in backup By def…

(I've just added the one mentioned by personalizedrefrigerator)

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**Author:** ![mrjo118](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/discourse.joplinapp.org/mrjo118/32/23404_2.png) [@mrjo118](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/mrjo118)\
**Post date:** [29 November 2025 00:13 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/synchronization-deleted-most-of-my-notes/47962/5 "2025-11-29T00:13:57Z")

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> [@joplinuser47](#):
>
> ### Joplin version
> 
> 2.12.19

FYI, in future if you are able to upgrade to at least Joplin version 3.3, the fail-safe mechanism has been improved in that version. See [Desktop, Mobile: Harden failsafe logic to check for the presence of info.json, rather than just the item count by mrjo118 · Pull Request #11750 · laurent22/joplin · GitHub](https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/pull/11750)

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**Author:** ![joplinuser47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8c91f0/32.png) [@joplinuser47](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/joplinuser47)\
**Post date:** [1 December 2025 08:41 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/synchronization-deleted-most-of-my-notes/47962/6 "2025-12-01T08:41:56Z")

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It took a while, but i was able to recover 98% of my notes! Thank you very much everybody, who suggested methods and especially @personalizedrefriger. The DB recovery log contained most of the missing pieces. I also updated Joplin to the newest version and inserted some extra backup steps to prevent something like this in the future. Again, thank you to everyone!

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/uploads/cozic/original/3X/1/c/1c948e33314e232a0927789508474d8624f4270b.png) [@system](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [31 December 2025 08:42 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/synchronization-deleted-most-of-my-notes/47962/7 "2025-12-31T08:42:18Z")

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