Notes Wrangler Sync Is Not Working: What to Check

You wrote a note on one machine, opened the other and found it missing. Sync looks broken, and before changing anything it is worth knowing what the automatic run actually requires, because the answer is short: a saved key, a current plan, Chrome running, a connection and no pending backoff. Every skipped run traces back to one of those five.

Nearly every report of a broken sync turns out to be the schedule doing its job under conditions you would not guess from the outside. The checks below run in the order that finds the cause fastest.

The Short Answer

Open Settings and press Sync now. If the notes arrive, the sync channel is fine and the problem was timing, because the hourly run had not fired yet. If nothing happens, read the status line the button leaves behind, then work through the five checks below, which cover every reason the extension skips a run.

Check 1: A Key Is Saved on Both Devices

Sync is off by default. On the Settings page the key line reads either a masked string or Not set. A device without a saved key does not upload and does not download, because the key is the workspace name as well as the credential.

Reveal the key on the device that has it, then paste it into the other device and press Save key. The field checks the shape as you save it, and a key that is not ntwr_live_ followed by 32 letters and digits is refused with a message saying so. Save the key file while you are there, because a workspace can only be reached with that string.

Check 2: The Yearly Plan Is Current

Sync is a paid feature, and the plan carries a 14 day grace period after expiry. Past that, paid features lock, the status line reports it, and every paid control on the page points at Upgrade instead of going quiet.

Local notes keep working throughout. Nothing is deleted while a plan is locked, and renewing resumes sync on the same key, so devices never need rejoining.

Check 3: Chrome Is Running and Has Been Open for a Moment

The hourly schedule is an alarm, and alarms live while the browser runs. The first alarm lands between one and ten minutes after Chrome starts, and later ones every hour. A machine that spends the day in sleep mode may never reach one, and a machine that is switched off over the weekend simply syncs when it is next opened.

Sync also requires the extension to be installed on that machine. A phone has no Notes Wrangler, because extensions do not run on mobile browsers.

Check 4: The Machine Is Online

An offline machine is skipped rather than queued for later. The extension checks the connection before it tries, so an offline hour costs nothing and the next hourly run covers it. A sync that repeatedly fails on an unreliable connection is different, and that is what the next check covers.

Check 5: A Failure Backoff Is Pending

After a failed automatic sync, the extension waits before trying again: one hour after the first failure, then two, then four, then six hours for later ones. That stops a dead connection or an expired plan from being retried every hour forever, and it is the single most common reason a sync appears to have stopped.

Sync now ignores the backoff, and a successful run clears it, so one manual sync is both the fix and the confirmation.

What a Sync Run Does

A run pushes queued changes in batches of 50 notes, then pulls whatever the workspace has changed since the last cursor. The automatic run does up to ten rounds, and Sync now does up to a hundred, so a library in the hundreds finishes in one press.

Deletions travel as tombstones, so a note removed on one device is removed on the others rather than returning at the next pull. When the same note changed on both sides, the newer update time wins for that note alone.

Read the Symptom Before You Change Anything

• Notes missing on the second device. Run Sync now on both. If they arrive, timing was the whole story.
• Nothing moves on either device. Check the key line first, then the plan status, then the status text left by the last manual sync.
• Sync worked once and stopped. Backoff is the usual cause. One successful manual run clears it.
• Deleted notes come back. They were deleted on a device that has not synced since. Press Sync now on that device so the deletion travels.
• The key was changed on one device. Each key names its own workspace, so the two devices are now looking at different sets of notes.

When Sync Is the Wrong Tool

Sync moves a working set between machines you control. It is the wrong answer for a note you want to survive the extension itself, for a library you are about to reset, or for a hand-off to another app. Export covers those: JSON for a faithful copy, Markdown for Notion, OneNote or Obsidian. The backup and restore guide covers both routes, and the one key guide covers how the key model works.

Frequently Asked Questions

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