When people look for signs of cheating, they comb through WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, TikTok messages or those sneaky “calculator” vault apps. Almost nobody thinks to open Notes, a totally utilitarian app meant for grocery lists, reminders, and random mental scraps. And that’s exactly why, as private investigators and social-media sleuths are now pointing out, it has quietly become one of the easiest places to hide an active chat in plain sigh.
How a note becomes a live chat
On iPhones, Notes has a collaboration feature that was designed for planning and shared lists. It lets you share a single note with another person so both of you can type into it and see updates appear almost in real time. Apple explains that you can “invite people to collaborate in real time on a note in iCloud, and everyone who has access can see the latest changes.” Participants need to be signed into their Apple account and have Notes switched on in iCloud, but once that is true the shared note behaves almost like a lightweight live document.
Tech sites have pointed out that this turns Notes into a stealthy chat window. Instead of messages appearing in a messaging app, both people type inside the same shared note. There is no “send” icon. New lines simply appear on the screen. The note can sit under a harmless title. It looks like planning or admin, not a thread of private back-and-forth. When the conversation ends, the owner can stop sharing the note or delete it completely, removing the shared copy from connected devices.That same feature makes it useful for ordinary thing, joint grocery lists, shared to-dos, surprise planning, but it also creates a channel that is much less visible than an obvious chat app.
The private investigator who keeps finding it
Australian private investigator Cassie Crofts, who runs a licensed service called Venus Investigations, says this quiet feature has become a favourite for people hiding conversations from partners. In a video shared by Daily Mail, she described what she now sees repeatedly in her work.“This is the iPhone hack that cheaters are obsessed with. A lot of people worry about secret messaging apps or calculators that hide secret photos but what a lot of people are using these days is much simpler and much harder to spot,” she said.She spells it out very clearly: “It’s the humble Notes app. Yes, the same place you pop groceries lists and all those draft angry texts to your ex. If you’ve got an iPhone, you can create a shared note with someone else. You can put notes in there, talk to each other, delete them when they’re done and you can even put a password on it so no one else can access it.”For Crofts’ clients, Notes is not theory. It is often where the missing pieces of a suspicion finally show up. She splits her work between New South Wales and Queensland and specialises in helping mostly women who believe their partners are hiding something. The shared note, sitting quietly on an iPhone or MacBook, can become the place where those suspicions are confirmed.“Think about it, the suspicious partner is probably going to check your text messages, maybe even hop on Messenger but are they really going to remember to go and check the Notes app?” she added.
TikTok, viral clips and people checking Notes
The wider trend came into focus on social platforms. TikTok and other video platforms are now full of clips explaining how the collaboration feature can double as a hidden channel. News outlets have picked up those videos and reported how private investigators and creators are warning about the practice.One viewer told how the discovery unfolded in her own circle: “Actually, I did check his Notes app,” she said, explaining that his Notes window was open on his laptop and that was how his girlfriend found out. Others reacted less as victims and more as spectators. One person commented: “Wow!” Another wrote: “You are breaking the bro code,” suggesting that revealing the trick was itself a kind of betrayal. Someone else added: “Everyone’s been cheating the wrong way all this time.”As more people post about it, the Notes app has gone from being a dull utility to a minor character in modern relationship dramas, an app people now mention in the same breath as disappearing messages and locked photo folders.
Why Notes feels safer than DMs
The appeal lies in how ordinary it looks. Messaging apps carry expectation and suspicion. If a partner checks a phone, the first instinct is to scan text messages, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, maybe Snapchat. Notes sits in a different category in most people’s minds. It is for reminders, drafts, bucket lists and work ideas. That low profile is useful for anyone trying not to draw attention.A shared note can also be labelled with something completely innocent, “Groceries”, “Budget”, “Books to read,” and buried inside a folder. There are no push notifications that clearly show an incoming chat. Because everyone is typing into the same space, it feels less like sending and more like editing. When sharing is revoked, the note disappears from the other person’s devices. If the owner deletes the note entirely, only screenshots, if any exist, preserve the content.Security is another layer. Apple notes that iCloud notes can be encrypted, and individual notes can be locked behind a password or Face ID. That makes it harder for someone holding the device to casually open a sensitive note without knowing where to look or what to tap.The same qualities that make Notes useful for private planning, low visibility, flexible naming, shared editing and easy deletion, are exactly what now make it attractive for hidden conversations.
