How to Troubleshoot the New Sticky Notes App in Windows 11

If you have the new Sticky Notes app in Windows 11 but your notes are missing, there are some troubleshooting steps you can take to get them back. In this guide, I’ll explain how to complete this process.

Microsoft is gradually rolling out a new version of Sticky Notes integrated with the OneNote app. The new experience is similar to the older version, but now includes the option to take screenshots, dock the app to the side of the screen, and requires OneNote to be installed.

While the app promises to modernize the experience with new visuals and capabilities, the rollout hasn’t been as smooth as the company had hoped. A small group of users have reported a few issues, including lags while scrolling due to the lack of smooth scrolling and syncing issues, and some users have noticed that their notes are no longer accessible.

If you can’t find your notes after installing a new version of the app on your computer, you can still try to recover them from the app database, reinstall the app, uninstall the updated version of OneNote, force a re-sync, or use an older version of the Sticky Notes app.

In this guide I will explain a few troubleshooting suggestions You can try to recover your notes because a new version of the application has been installed on your computer.

How to Troubleshoot Sticky Notes in Windows 11

If you’re having trouble with your sticky notes, try the following solutions.

Force Sticky Notes Sync

If you notice that your notes have disappeared in the new app, it is important to remember that the older version of the app is still available. Therefore, the first step is to open the older Sticky Notes app (the one without this “Announcement” (label) from the Start menu.

Legacy Sticky Notes

(Photo source: Mauro Huculak)

If you can’t find your notes, you can sign out of both apps and then sign back in using the same Microsoft account to restart the sync process.

Log out of Sticky Notes legacy app

(Photo source: Mauro Huculak)

The option to log in to the new app is available in OneNote settings.

OneNote Login Settings

(Photo source: Mauro Huculak)

If your notes are available in an older version but are not synced to the new version, you may need to manually transfer them by copying and pasting each note.

Recover sticky notes from database

If your notes aren’t in the new Sticky Notes app integrated with OneNote and you can’t open the older app, you can try recovering your notes from the database the app uses locally on your device.

To recover sticky notes from your local database, follow these steps:

Open File Explorer.
Go to the following path: %LocalAppData%\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftStickyNotes_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState
Choose plum.sqlite file and click Copy button from the command bar.

Sticky Note Database File

(Photo source: Mauro Huculak)

Open another folder location, e.g. “Download” folder.
Click Paste button from the command bar.
Open Start.
Search Notebook and click the top result to open a text editor (leave the app open).
Open Start Again.
Search Command lineright click on the top result and select Run as administrator option.
Type the following command to install SQLite Studio and open the database, then press Enter: winget install –id sqlitestudio.pl.SQLiteStudio

winget SQLite Studio installation

(Photo source: Mauro Huculak)

Quick note: You can use any application designed to open and browse a database. In this guide, I’m choosing to install the SQLite Studio application. The app is listed for $1.29 in the Microsoft Store, but apparently you can also install it directly from the store using “wing” command. Once you have recovered your notes, you can uninstall them.

Right click on copy plum.sqlite file and select Open option to mount it in the database browser application.

Plum db sticky notes

(Photo source: Mauro Huculak)

Follow this path: plum > Tables.
Double click Note table.
Click Data strap.
Confirm the contents of each note in “Text” column.

Sticky notes, notes table

(Photo source: Mauro Huculak)

Right click on the cell and select Copy option.

Copy table contents to clipboard

(Photo source: Mauro Huculak)

Switch to Notebook app.
Open Edit menu and select Paste option.

Notepad paste sticky notes

(Photo source: Mauro Huculak)

Repeat steps 15, 16, AND 17 to recover the remaining notes.

Quick tip: Remember to remove “\id=” and number to organize your note.

After completing the steps, you will have your notes again. Now you can restore the notes in the new application.

If the database is empty, you can recover your notes using an older version of the file. Of course, if you have a system backup.

Reinstalling older versions of Sticky Notes

If you don’t want to dig into the database, you can try recovering your notes by reinstalling the app.

If the older Sticky Notes app is missing, you can reinstall it from the Microsoft Store by following these steps:

Open Sticky notes download page.
Click “See in store” button.

Download Sticky Notes from the Microsoft Store

(Photo source: Mauro Huculak)

Click Get (Or Install) button.

Install the older version of Sticky Notes

(Photo source: Mauro Huculak)

Once you have completed these steps, launch the older version of the Sticky Notes app from the Start menu and you will have access to your notes.

Uninstall OneNote (temporarily)

If you can’t open an older version of an app, sometimes deleting the newer app can make the older version available again.

To temporarily uninstall OneNote, follow these steps:

Open Settings.
Click on Applications.
Click Installed applications side.
Click the three-dot button for Microsoft 365 and click Uninstall button.

Uninstall OneNote app

(Photo source: Mauro Huculak)

Quick note: This process will also uninstall Word, Excel, and other Office apps if they are installed on your computer. If your computer only has the OneNote app, removing Microsoft 365 will remove only the OneNote app.

Click Uninstall press the button again.

After completing these steps, the older Sticky Notes app should open containing all your notes.

If you’re not interested in syncing your notes across devices or the new features, you can download and install the classic version of the Sticky Notes app introduced in Windows 10.

The classic version has been re-packaged as an “.exe” file that can run side-by-side with older and new versions of Sticky Notes.

More resources

For more helpful articles, resources, and answers to frequently asked questions about Windows 10 and Windows 11, visit the following resources: