[Apple Notes] All attachments become "**error reading attachment**" after import

[dinghaoz]

I am on macOS 14.0 (23A344). Zero attachments are actually imported.

[mirnovov]

@dinghaoz This is because the importer is having trouble reading the data where your attachments are stored. Unfortunately, without more information I can't tell what exactly the cause of this is.

• Do you use 'On My Mac' instead of storing your Apple Notes in iCloud?
• Are any of the notes you've trying to import shared with other people, or by other people?
• Your files should be stored in /Users/yourusername/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes/Accounts/bunchofrandomnumbers/Media/. Are there images in the subfolders there?
• Do the image subfolders and account folders follow a format that looks like this: 2B93D0B5-DC59-4595-B6BB-17DB7FE3DEAD?
• Does your user folder have any special characters or is otherwise unusual?
• Have you opened Apple Notes since upgrading to Sonoma?

[dinghaoz]

Thanks for the reply. Here are the answers:

1. I store my Apple Notes in iCloud.
2. Yes, I do share a few notes with my wife, but not all.
3. No, /Users/yourusername/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes/Accounts/bunchofrandomnumbers/ doesn't have Media folder. But /Users/yourusername/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes/Media exists though and it seems like it is where all the attachments located.
4. Yes, they do.
5. Yes, I prefix my notes folder with emojis to make them look more like Notion and my notes' titles are mostly in Chinese.
6. Yes I have.
   @mirnovov

[dinghaoz]

@mirnovov
I feel that the issue might be related to question 3. The code seems assuming the attachments are under group.com.apple.notes/Accounts/account-UUID/Media but they are actually at group.com.apple.notes/Media. Could that be a new thing on Sonoma? I don't have older version of Mac so can't be sure.

The code: apple-notes.ts:331

				const account = row.ZACCOUNT6 || row.ZACCOUNT5;
				sourcePath = path.join(
					this.resolvedAccounts[account].path, 
					'Media', row.ZIDENTIFIER, row.ZGENERATION1 || '', row.ZFILENAME
				);

But my folder hierarchy looks like this

[mirnovov]

Yeah, I think this is it. Thanks for the help.

It’s not to do with the macOS version I think, I’m on Sonoma (and have tested on a bunch of other versions) and everything is under the Accounts folder for me, and this seems to be the case for the vast majority of people on all versions. Worst case scenario if I can’t figure out I can always just have it check both the first time to determine which one to use.

[kepano]

@mirnovov there may be some useful prior art in Apple Notes Liberator to find the location of the database

[mirnovov]

Unfortunately there isn’t, it assumes the files are always in the same folder like this importer currently does.

[kepano]

This should now be fixed if you update to Importer 1.5.3