You exported your Apple Notes as an ENEX file and imported it into Notion only to find that images, PDFs, and other attachments are no longer in the sequence you arranged. This happens because the two applications use fundamentally different data models for storing attachments. Notion stores each attachment as a separate block, while Apple Notes embeds attachments within rich text in a linear stream. This article explains the technical root cause of the order loss and what you can do to work around the limitation.
Key Takeaways: Why Apple Notes Import Loses Attachment Order
- ENEX file format: Apple Notes exports attachments as inline objects inside the note body, not as separate ordered items.
- Notion block structure: Each attachment becomes an independent block that Notion places based on its own parsing rules, not the original sequence.
- No official fix from Notion: As of 2025, Notion does not offer an import option to preserve the original attachment order from Apple Notes.
Why Apple Notes and Notion Handle Attachments Differently
Apple Notes stores a note as a single rich-text document. Attachments like images, scanned documents, and PDFs are embedded inline within the note’s HTML or RTF content. When you export a note to the ENEX format (the standard export format for Apple Notes), the attachments are encoded as base64 data and placed at the point in the text where you inserted them. The ENEX file preserves the order of those inline objects exactly as they appeared in Apple Notes.
Notion, on the other hand, uses a block-based editor. Every element — a paragraph, an image, a file — is a separate block. When Notion imports an ENEX file, it must convert the inline attachment data into individual blocks. The Notion import parser does not read the inline sequence from the ENEX file. Instead, it extracts all attachments from the note and appends them as a group at the end of the imported page. This is the direct cause of the order loss: Notion treats attachments as a collection rather than a sequence.
Another factor is that the ENEX format does not store explicit ordering metadata for attachments. Apple Notes relies on the physical position of the attachment data inside the rich-text structure. When Notion’s import tool parses that structure, it separates the text content from the attachment data. The text is placed in order, but all attachments are collected and placed after the text. This design choice simplifies the import logic but sacrifices the original attachment order.
Steps to Identify and Manually Reorder Attachments After Import
Because Notion cannot preserve attachment order automatically, you must reorder them manually. The following steps show you how to identify which attachments belong to which note and then rearrange them.
- Import the ENEX file into Notion
Open Notion and go to Settings & Members > Settings > Import. Select Apple Notes and choose the ENEX file. Notion will create a new page for each note. Wait for the import to finish. - Open the imported note page
Click the page title to open it. Scroll to the bottom of the page. You will see all attachments grouped together below the text content. - Identify the correct attachment order
Open the original Apple Notes app on your Mac or iPhone. Find the same note and note the sequence of attachments from top to bottom. Write down the order or take a screenshot. - Drag attachments to their correct positions
In Notion, click and hold the six-dot icon to the left of an attachment block. Drag it up or down to match the order you recorded. Repeat for each attachment. - Remove duplicate or misplaced attachments
If an attachment appears twice or in the wrong page, hover over it and click the three-dot menu. Select Delete to remove it. Only delete after you confirm the correct attachment is in the right place.
If Notion Import Still Has Issues After Reordering
Attachments appear on the wrong page
Sometimes the ENEX file contains notes with similar content and Notion may merge attachments incorrectly. Open the original Apple Notes note and check the attachment count. In Notion, compare the number of attachment blocks on the page. If they do not match, delete the extra blocks and manually add the missing attachment by dragging it from another page or re-importing only that note.
Image thumbnails are broken after import
A broken image thumbnail means the base64 data was not fully decoded during import. Right-click the broken image block and select Reload. If that does not work, delete the block and re-add the image by uploading the original file from your computer. To avoid this in the future, export notes individually from Apple Notes rather than as a batch.
PDF attachments open as text instead of file blocks
Notion may interpret a PDF attachment as inline text if the ENEX file encodes it incorrectly. Delete the text block and re-upload the PDF file directly to Notion. Use the Upload button at the top of the page or drag the PDF file from your file explorer into the Notion page.
Large import causes Notion to freeze
Importing an ENEX file with hundreds of notes and thousands of attachments can slow down Notion significantly. Break the export into smaller ENEX files by exporting only a few notes at a time from Apple Notes. Import each small file separately. This keeps the Notion interface responsive and makes manual reordering easier.
Apple Notes Export vs Notion Import: Attachment Handling Compared
| Item | Apple Notes Export (ENEX) | Notion Import |
|---|---|---|
| Attachment storage method | Inline base64 encoded objects | Separate block per attachment |
| Order preservation | Preserves order exactly as arranged | Does not preserve order; appends all attachments at the end |
| Maximum attachment count per note | No official limit; depends on file size | No official limit; performance degrades above 50 attachments per page |
| File size limit per export | 100 MB per ENEX file (Apple limit) | 5 MB per file upload (Notion Free plan); 30 MB per file upload (Notion Plus and higher) |
| Manual reorder required after import | Not applicable | Yes, always required |
After importing, you can now manually reorder attachments to match the original Apple Notes layout. To save time on future imports, consider grouping notes by topic before exporting so that each ENEX file contains fewer attachments. For notes with critical attachment sequences, use the drag-and-drop method described above rather than relying on the automatic import. An advanced tip: if you frequently move content between Apple Notes and Notion, use a third-party tool like Exporter for Apple Notes (Mac only) that generates Markdown output with inline image references, which Notion can parse more predictably.