Microsoft has announced that it’s bringing automatic local backups for OneNote on iOS to improve notebook resilience and give users a self-service recovery path. With this update, the mobile app will create local copies of notebook data, aligning the iOS experience with existing backup capabilities found on Windows and macOS.
The rollout of this feature is going to start mid-March and will reach general availability for all global tenants by mid-April 2026. The feature will be enabled by default for all users unless organization-level restrictions are in place through mobile device management settings.
The local backups will be saved within a user-accessible directory in the iOS Files app, though you won’t be able to open the files themselves directly on your phone. To complete a recovery, you must transfer the files to a Mac or Windows PC where the desktop version of OneNote will be able to process them.
Administrators will be able to manage this feature via existing Microsoft Intune app protection policies, instead of requiring a new toggle or configuration. If your organization has set the policy for “Send org data to other apps” to anything other than “All apps”, the local backup feature will be disabled automatically to prevent data movement without authorization.
When this feature launches, it will provide an important safety net for mobile-first users, who until now, had no native way to recover corrupted or deleted notes without technical help. By giving users access to data recovery, via a secondary PC, users will be able to help themselves, instead of relying on IT departments for recovery assistance.
Before the rollout, organizations with strict data leakage prevention (DLP) requirements should check their Intune configurations to ensure these local copies don’t bypass security protocols. As they are in a user-accessible location, they represent a new place where data can fall into the wrong hands, so security audits should be performed. Microsoft also recommends updating internal documentation and helpdesk manuals to outline the new recovery workflow. You can read more on the Microsoft 365 Admin Center under message ID MC1235123.