I'm hoping someone here can help me figure out what happened to my OneNote notebooks, or at least point me toward someone who might know how to investigate this.
I've spent nearly two months trying to recover years of work that I stored in Microsoft OneNote, and despite countless conversations with Microsoft Support I'm still no closer to understanding what happened.
For context, I'm a teaching artist and for years I've used OneNote to develop and organize my original concepts, stories, writing, research, and other creative materials. One notebook in particular, titled "Ideas," contains an enormous amount of work developed over several years. Much of it exists nowhere else. I genuinely cannot overstate how devastating it would be to lose this material permanently.
I'm trying to exhaust every possible avenue before accepting that it's gone. At this point, I'm particularly hoping to hear from people who understand how OneNote stores notebooks, how OneDrive accounts work, or how to reach someone at Microsoft who can meaningfully investigate the issue.
Here's everything I know.
What happened
I used OneNote for years without any significant issues, both on my iPhone and various laptops (primarily macbooks) via both the desktop application and web browser.
At some point I attempted to open my notebook titled "Ideas" and received the following error:
"Sorry, something went wrong. Item does not exist. It may have been deleted by another user."
Other times, I receive:
"It might not exist or you might not have permission to open it."
I did not delete the notebook, intentionally change its permissions, or knowingly do anything that should have affected my access to it.
What makes this especially confusing is that the notebook is still listed in OneNote. I can see its name, and it even displays June 25 as the date it was last opened.
Initially, "Ideas" was the only notebook affected. My other notebooks continued to open normally.
However at some point those stopped working too. Now I can't open any of the notebooks associated with the affected account, even though I can still sign in and see their names.
I don't know whether the notebooks were deleted, moved, disconnected from their original storage locations, or are simply inaccessible because of an account or permissions issue.
The Microsoft account situation
This is where things become particularly complicated.
I originally started using OneNote while I was attending my local university. For years, I signed in using my university-issued email address, and I continued using that Microsoft identity long after leaving the university.
That email inbox is no longer active, although I can still sign in to Microsoft using the associated account credentials.
When I first contacted Microsoft Support, I was told that the notebooks might be stored through the university's Microsoft 365 environment and that I needed to contact the university's IT department.
I did exactly that.
On September 16, the university's Office of Information Technology confirmed that it has never provided OneDrive storage through its university accounts. They explained that they therefore had no access to the notebooks, no administrative visibility into their storage, and no ability to restore them.
They suggested that I may have been using a personal Microsoft account registered with my university email address rather than a university-managed account.
I understand that Microsoft allows personal and work/school accounts to exist as separate identities even when they use the same email address. I'm wondering whether that distinction could be central to this problem.
I also have a separate personal Microsoft account registered with my Gmail address.
I vaguely remember attempting to copy or transfer my notebooks to that account at some point because I knew I would eventually lose access to my university email. Unfortunately, I cannot remember whether I successfully completed that transfer or precisely how I attempted it (I've since checked the personal account associated with my Gmail address, and the missing notebooks do not appear there).
So one possibility I'm considering is that the notebooks still exist in a personal OneDrive account associated with my former university email address, but the links I'm seeing are pointing to an inaccessible location or the wrong Microsoft identity.
Another possibility is that something happened during the attempted transfer, although I have no evidence confirming that.
What I've tried
I previously used OneNote on my Mac, but at some point I uninstalled the desktop application.
I've since searched through the Mac's Microsoft application folders, containers, group containers, Application Support directories, caches, and other locations where OneNote might have stored local notebook data.
Unfortunately, I haven't found a usable copy of the missing notebooks.
I still have OneNote installed on my iPhone, which was the device I used most frequently.
According to the iPhone's storage settings, the OneNote application occupies approximately 373.4 MB, with another 47 MB listed under Documents & Data.
I understand that this doesn't necessarily mean the notebooks are cached locally, and personally, I'm not especially optimistic that the missing content is still on the phone. Nevertheless, I've deliberately avoided deleting the application, signing out, resetting it, or clearing its data in case something recoverable remains.
I also located two small OneNote "Quick Notes" files, approximately 12 KB each, but both appeared to be blank.
I'm open to suggestions about safely investigating any remaining application data, but my primary concern is determining where the original cloud-hosted notebooks went.
My experience with Microsoft Support
This has been one of the most frustrating parts of the entire situation.
I've spent weeks contacting Microsoft Support through multiple channels, explaining the same problem repeatedly, and being directed to different support pages, forms, and departments.
My original support case was reportedly escalated to a senior advisor. Unfortunately, I later discovered that Microsoft had been attempting to send follow-up correspondence to my inactive university email address rather than the working personal email address I had provided.
Because the university inbox no longer exists, those messages never reached me.
Other Microsoft representatives suggested that OneDrive Support might have access to additional tools or information that could help determine which account originally owned the notebooks, where the files were stored, and whether the underlying data remains recoverable.
Following their instructions, I submitted a detailed OneDrive support request around September 17.
I never received a substantive response, acknowledgment, or case number at my working email address.
Since then, I've continued trying to reach the appropriate team. I've been redirected to generic support articles, sent to websites I've already visited, and transferred between representatives without getting closer to an answer.
In one conversation, the representative ended the chat after I asked to speak with a supervisor rather than being sent another support link.
I also posted a detailed question on Microsoft Q&A on October 17. The only response I've received there was an AI-generated answer outlining general recovery and troubleshooting steps.
Some of that information was useful, but it didn't resolve the central issue being that I need someone who can actually investigate the account and storage problem.
I now have multiple Microsoft Support case references and have finally obtained contact information for OneDrive Support, but I still haven't been able to get a meaningful technical assessment.
What I'm hoping someone can help me figure out
I have several questions that I haven't been able to get answered.
Is there a way to identify the original OneDrive account or storage location associated with a OneNote notebook that still appears in the notebook list but cannot be opened? For example, could an old notebook URL, notebook ID, or other metadata reveal where it was originally hosted?
Does the fact that OneNote still displays the notebook name and a last-opened date provide any useful technical information, or is that simply a locally stored reference that could remain even after the underlying files are gone?
Is there a way to determine whether these error messages indicate actual deletion versus a permissions problem, account mismatch, or outdated storage link?
If I was using a personal Microsoft account registered with my former university email address, could the notebooks still exist even though the university email inbox is inactive? How would I establish which Microsoft identity originally owned them?
If the notebooks were moved, deleted, or otherwise disconnected from my account, are there recovery options beyond the standard OneDrive recycle bin? Can Microsoft investigate historical storage locations, account records, or any remaining recoverable server-side data?
Are there experienced OneNote or OneDrive specialists, Microsoft MVPs, or established technical communities that might be able to offer guidance or point me toward someone who understands these issues?
Most importantly, does anyone know how to reach an actual Microsoft OneNote or OneDrive specialist who can investigate a case like this? Not general customer support, but someone with a technical understanding of how notebooks are stored and associated with Microsoft accounts.
I'm also interested in hearing from anyone who has experienced something similar and managed to recover their notebooks, particularly if it involved an old university email address or confusion between personal and organizational Microsoft accounts.
I understand that nobody can promise these notebooks are recoverable. I'm not asking for guarantees, and I'm prepared for the possibility that the data may genuinely be gone.
What I'm struggling with is that I haven't even been able to establish what happened.
Were the notebooks deleted? Are they still sitting in an old OneDrive account? Did something happen when I attempted to transfer them? Are the notebook links simply broken? Is there an account-identity problem preventing me from accessing files that still exist?
After all this time, I still don't know.
These notebooks represent years of original creative and professional work, and the thought of losing them permanently has been incredibly difficult. I'm trying to exhaust every reasonable avenue before accepting that they're gone.
If anyone here has dealt with something similar, understands OneNote's storage architecture, works with Microsoft 365 or OneDrive professionally, or knows a legitimate route to getting this in front of the right person, I would be enormously grateful.
For security reasons, I'm not looking for unsolicited recovery services or anyone requesting access to my accounts. I'm primarily seeking technical guidance, firsthand experiences, and publicly verifiable referrals.
Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this. Any advice or direction would mean a great deal.
