Notes: New Note disabled

I had the same problem then tried going to Notes --> Preferences --> Ticked the "Enable the On My Mac account" The new note icon is back (no longer gray) on my Notes view. Hope this helps.

I've just closed the app and opened it again and I was able to create notes 🫢

Notes - Preferences -- UNCHECK resume quick note, close notes and reopen. Enjoy =)

As others have said. Going into setting, inactivating and reactivating notes works. Disable and re-enable notes on iCloud in System Preferences -> Apple Id

I am making blank notes on my phone just to use on my computer. Migrating to MacOS has been frustrating to say the least. At least on Windows/LINUX there is someone in the interwebs to offer a real solution to these kind of things.

new note on my MacBook has been greyed out for many years. Every 6 months or so I look for a solution. I have asked many apple experts. I have a tone of important notes I created on my iPhone which works. I can't delete these. These are visible in the MacBook, but I can't create new ones on the MacBook. Its a bug which has been around for years. Both devices have notes set to sync in iCloud preferences. Today I tried switching off notes sync on iPhone, but it said it would deleted all my notes so I canceled. This is crazy. However, interestingly, if I switch off notes sync on the Mac, it doesn't say this, but it did it anyway without warning. then it loaded them again, now I can create new notes, for the first Time on my Mac.

Same here. Tried every thing noted in the notes and comments above. Nothing worked.

If you already have a new note added earlier and which is empty, that is the problem. You should delete the empty note and new note button will be back in full force.

In my case, I solved the problem with the following steps:

1. Open the notes app
2. Click preferences on the top menu
3. Check "Enable the On My Mac account

Not a dev, but for me this fixed it:

Preferences--- Enable the On my Mac account

(I also unchecked Resume last quick note first, per someone else's advice as an easy fix, but that alone did not work)

WARNING DO NOT FOLLOW THE ADVICE IN THIS FEED!!! I lost ALL of my notes on my Mac. They have not been deleted from my phone... yet

Log out of apple ID on mac and log back in. Reimports all notes and possible to create new note again.

I was having the same issue. With notes on my Mac open. I unlocked my iPhone and created a new note on the phone. When notes synced. The ability to create a new note on the Mac appeared again

I've had this problem for years. My iPhone won't sync up to my MacBook, although I've got iCloud and plenty of space. But the main thing that bothered me was that I couldn't create a new note! And I JUST got a solution. Untick the box with "resume last quick note". Cmd N doesn't work for me, and it is still greyed out in the menu-bar.. BUT.. If you move your cursor in the right corner (that is where I have a shortcut to quick notes at least), it pops up an option for a new note!

I was experiencing the same problem and what I found that worked for me was to first open Notes on my iPhone. Then in the dock on my Mac it would show 'Notes from iPhone' (not sure if this would work for the OP as Handoff may not have been introduced yet when the original post was made). Clicking that would open Notes in an 'unlocked' state with all Notes that were saved to iCloud as well as the ability to create new notes. However, if I was to click on the quick note in the bottom right of the screen (while Notes is closed) Notes would revert back to the 'locked' up state and I would have to go through this process again.

YMMV

Running MacOS Monterey (12.6) on a Mac M1 mini