Bear Not Working? Common Errors & Fixes

Bear sync usually fails because of an Apple ID mismatch, full iCloud storage, sync disabled in Bear, or devices on different Bear versions. Update Bear everywhere, confirm the same Apple ID and free iCloud space, then toggle Bear's sync off and on.

After importing hundreds or thousands of notes, Bear's first iCloud upload can take hours, and iOS pauses it when the app goes to the background. Keep Bear open in the foreground on fast Wi-Fi until the syncing cloud icon disappears.

Bear creates duplicate 'conflicted' notes when the same note is edited on two devices before they sync. It keeps both versions so nothing is lost - review them, merge the content into one, and delete the other.

Bear Web (web.bear.app) cannot read your notes while iCloud Advanced Data Protection is on. Turning off ADP is the documented workaround; missing tags in the web sidebar are usually fixed by updates and waiting for background indexing.

Tags that vanish from Bear's sidebar are usually an indexing glitch: edit the note (or delete and retype the tag) so Bear re-detects it, and update to the latest version. Web-only cases are a known Bear Web beta issue.

Bear crashes on some large .enex imports; the most recent crash (Bear 2.7.1 on macOS Tahoe) was fixed in 2.7.2. Update first, then import in smaller batches and isolate notes with duplicate titles.

Older AppleScript/HTML export methods bring Apple Notes into Bear with only titles, missing notes or checklists turned into bullets. On macOS 26, export from Notes as Markdown and import the folder into Bear instead.

Bear's editor slows down in very large notes (100k-400k characters): typing lags by seconds and in-note search can freeze. Bear has acknowledged the search issue; splitting long notes is the reliable fix.

Bear cannot see, recover or reset your Note Password, so encrypted notes can't be opened without it. Try saved passwords and your hint; if it's truly lost, the only way forward is deleting locked notes and resetting the password.

When notes or images go missing after moving from Bear 1 to Bear 2, the migration can be re-run: export any new notes, quit Bear, delete the 'Application Data v2' folder and relaunch so Bear imports from the untouched Bear 1 data again.

Bear drops tags from exports unless 'Keep tags during export' is on, and HTML exports leave images as separate files unless you enable base64. PDF, DOCX, HTML, JPG and ePub export also require Bear Pro.