one note files stay in iphone, but disappear in Win 11 laptop

To get the iPhone OneNote content to appear again on the Windows 11 laptop, ensure both apps are using the same cloud account and that notebooks are fully synced from iOS, then open/sync them on Windows.

Follow these steps:

1. Verify the account used on iPhone
   1. In OneNote on iOS, go to Settings → Accounts.
   2. Confirm which Microsoft/OneDrive account is listed (email address).
2. Manually sync notebooks on iPhone
   1. On any page, tap the Show Notebooks button.
   2. In the notebooks list, press and pull down to force a sync of all shared notebooks.
      • To sync a single section, go to that section and pull down on the page list.
      • To sync a single notebook, go to any section in that notebook and pull down the section list.
   3. Wait until sync completes and no errors are shown.
3. Confirm the notebooks exist in OneDrive
   1. Sign in to the same account on the OneDrive home page or via the OneDrive iOS app.
   2. Browse folders such as Documents or Notebooks and confirm the notebook(s) are present.
4. Connect the same OneDrive account in OneNote on Windows 11
   1. On the Windows 11 laptop, open OneNote on Windows (the latest app from Microsoft Store, not OneNote for Windows 10 if possible).
   2. Sign in with the same Microsoft account used on iPhone and OneDrive.
5. Open the cloud notebooks on Windows
   1. In OneNote on Windows, go to File → Open.
   2. Under the connected OneDrive account, select the notebook(s) that match those seen on iPhone/OneDrive.
   3. Wait for sync to complete and verify that all sections/pages appear.
6. If sections are still missing on Windows
   1. On Windows, right‑click each notebook and choose Sync Now to force a full sync.
   2. Check for misplaced sections via View → Misplaced Sections and move any found sections into the correct notebook.
   3. If the notebook was originally created in an older Windows version and never moved to OneDrive, first upgrade and move it to OneDrive as described in the sync article, then open it on iOS and Windows.

If the iPhone shows the sections and they are fully synced to OneDrive, opening the same notebooks from that OneDrive account in OneNote on Windows will “reassemble” the content on the laptop.

References:

• Find OneNote notes, pages or tabs
• Sync a notebook in OneNote
• Moving to OneNote on Windows