Private Event Notes

Private event notes are your own notes on a calendar event: an agenda, talking points, or what was agreed. Sonto keeps them itself. They’re never shared with attendees and never written to the calendar event, so other calendar apps and the people you meet with don’t see them. They sync through your iCloud to your other devices. Each note belongs to one event. For a repeating meeting, every occurrence has its own note, and Sonto shows you what you wrote last time.

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Private notes and the event description

An event can carry two kinds of text, and Sonto keeps them apart:

• Event description — the event’s own notes, stored in your calendar. Everyone invited sees them. Sonto shows the description as a row in the event’s details, labelled Event description when it’s empty, or with its first line. Tap or click the row to open it, and edit it if the event is yours to change. Wherever you edit it, Sonto reminds you that it’s Visible to all attendees.
• Private event notes — your notes in Sonto, never in the calendar.

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Where you find them

Open an event on the Day or Week screen to see its private notes. The calendar itself doesn’t mark which events have notes; VoiceOver reads “Has private notes” for those that do. Sonto saves your notes as you type. To remove a note, clear its text.

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Event focus

Event focus works like Focus for a task: the event fills the screen, with your private notes as the main text.

• Title — the event’s name, which you can edit when the event is yours to change.
• Time — a pill with the event’s time and length, such as “11:00 1h”, with the day in front when it isn’t today, or All day. Its colour shows where the event stands: green while it’s on, orange once it ended today, red when it ended earlier. Click or tap it to open the event editor and change the time, calendar or other details. While the meeting is running, focus shows Event Happening Now and how much time is left.
• Join — joins the video call, when the event has one.
• Attendees — the people invited and their responses.
• Event description — opens the shared description, marked Visible to all attendees.
• Add Checklist (Mac) — starts a checklist in your notes. On iPhone and iPad it’s in the keyboard toolbar.
• Event Options (the … button) — the same actions as the event’s menu, such as Create Task for Event.

Click or tap below your notes to continue typing at the end.

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Repeating meetings

Each occurrence of a repeating meeting has its own note, so this week’s notes don’t overwrite last week’s.

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Last time

At the bottom of focus, the Last time panel shows the notes from the previous occurrence that has notes, with its date. It opens collapsed; click or tap it to read them. If there’s no earlier note, it reads No earlier notes. If the previous notes have unchecked checklist items, Carry over N open items copies them into the notes of the occurrence you’re looking at, under “Carried over from” and the date. Items that are already there aren’t copied again. Undo Carry Over takes them out again, as long as you haven’t changed the notes since.

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Jump between occurrences

The … button next to Last time lists the occurrences of the series by date:

• Upcoming Events — a submenu with upcoming occurrences that have private notes. Further dates are under Later Dates, grouped by year.
• Below it, the most recent past occurrences with notes. Older ones are under Older Dates, grouped by year.

The occurrence you’re looking at has a check mark. Choose a date to show that occurrence’s notes in the same focus view. Last time, the time pill and Event Options then act on that occurrence. To return to the occurrence you opened, click or tap the back button next to the time pill, or choose Back to and the date at the top of the menu. Closing focus always takes you straight back to where you came from. An occurrence that’s no longer on your calendar still shows its notes, marked Event no longer on the calendar, but you can’t edit them there.

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Turn an event into a task

Create Task for Event turns an event into a task linked to it (see Calendar). If the occurrence has private notes, they move into the task’s notes, and the event no longer keeps a separate private note. Sonto says so next to Create Task for Event: in the task, your notes can be read by Spotlight, Siri and connected AI tools.

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Which calendars support private notes

Private notes work on calendars you can edit that sync over CalDAV, such as iCloud, Google and other CalDAV accounts. They aren’t available for:

• Microsoft Exchange calendars — Sonto shows “Private notes aren’t available for Exchange calendars.” instead;
• calendars on your device only, subscribed calendars, birthdays, and calendars you can only read, such as a holidays calendar.

On those calendars, the event shows its description as before, without private notes.

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Sync and backups

Private notes sync through your iCloud to your other devices. They need Sonto’s new sync system. If a device still uses the previous one (you chose Not now when Sonto offered to switch sync), Sonto doesn’t show private notes there at all. If you edit the same note on two devices at once, the last change to sync wins. Backups include your private notes. When you restore, choose Private Meeting Notes to bring them back.

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Notes without an event

When an event is deleted, moved to another account, or changed outside Sonto, its private notes are kept. Sonto never deletes or moves them for you. You can still find them with search, and they open in focus. To review them, open Settings → Scheduling and choose Find Private Notes Without an Event…. For each note you can Delete it, or attach it to an event with the same title on that day.

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Search

With Search in Notes on, search also looks through your private notes and the titles of the events they belong to. Matches appear in a Meeting Notes section below your tasks; choose one to open it in focus.

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AI tools

On Mac, connected AI tools can read and write your private notes, but only when you turn on Allow AI Tools to Read Private Meeting Notes in Settings → AI. It’s off by default. Writing notes also needs Allow changes. See Connect to AI Agents.

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Availability

Private event notes work on Mac, iPhone and iPad, on supported calendars, with the new sync system. Opening focus from the event’s menu or with Cmd + . is Mac only; on iPhone and iPad, use the expand button in the event’s details. AI access to notes is Mac only, like the MCP server.

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