I've been using iCloud to sync Obsidian, and have consistently run into the problem that iCloud file container access needs full disk permissions that I don't want to give the agent (or Ghostty). Does everybody use Obsidian's paid sync instead or what? Or SyncThing?
Another option is obsidian lets you set which folders should sync. So I have everything in one vault, and in my trusted environment I let have everything synced, work machine only gets the work folder, and windows gaming machine only gets required non-confidential stuff (i.e notes about stuff that isnt me).
Its nice to be able to review it all from one machine though
I used to use SyncThing, then Dropbox, then iCloud. But then I just caved and paid for Obsidian Sync and it is the best money spent aside from Claude. I don't have to tinker with weird settings anymore or deal with sync issues, it just works.
I can't wonder if that's by design to make it hard for a plugin to have it's own sync mechanism. Definitely not proof of this that I know of, but a thought.
There can't be a will from the devs to make it hard to sync.
It's just that unlike git or Dropbox or whatever, that are just generic "syncing" tools, Obsidian Sync has been built to provide the best experience with Obsidian.
I'm talking more about the plugin architecture not about the file format or third-party applications. sync plugins seems to be pretty limited compared to what's offered for a subscription.
someone reverse engineered obsidian sync a couple years ago, but obsidian ended up “patching” it. Saw some recent discussion on here about it:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44768641
it's not per-vault is it? I have multiple vaults I'd like to sync selectively (50% of files in one vault for one machine, and 100% on another etc.)
No space restrictions?
I only use a single vault, so I'm afraid I can't answer to your question.
So when I talk about selective sync, it's about what is synced within a vault, and more specifically Obsidian settings/plugins...
I don't have the need to selectively sync only some of my vault's content, so never looked into it.
I just know that Obsidian Sync does what I'm expecting it to do.
And to add some context: I'd rather they just add a regular "Obsidian" sub that included vault sync; instead of giving away Obsidian for free, and selling add-ons. Because on itself, Obsidian Sync is quite expensive. If I'm willing to pay that much for that little, it's because, to me, I'm paying first for the development of Obsidian in itself.
But I understand why they wanted to go this way.
I don't know if it is/was the best move; because I see lots of people not willing to use Obsidian just because they are "scamming" people on their expensive Sync add-on.
Joplin has great sync support for a number of providers, Dropbox, Onedrive, Nextcloud, S3 etc, Obsidian supports none of these on iOS so I cant sync all my devices without having all my notes go to Obsidian servers and paying the fee.
Definitely one of the biggest ROI is to pay for the sync. I regret all years I tried git-based alternatives (it's still useful to have it in git for backup, but not as the main syncing mechanism).
I was using SyncThing, and it worked, but any time you have an Obsidian vault open on two devices, or shortly after another, you're always thinking about if you're going to have to clean up a bunch of sync conflict files later. And that mental overhead is not worth saving $4/mo.
The conflicts are never hard: it's like a git merge conflict where you just take the latest of every conflict block.
I used multiple sync "solutions" (terrible idea, in retrospect); Dropsync, Syncthing, Drivesync, in addition to paying for Obsidian Sync, because I was delusional about "backing up my data". Huge mistake on my part, I've spent many, many, many hours deduplicating worthless "backups". Agree with "just pay for Obsidian Sync".
I try to selfhost most of my stuff I rely on. Immich, Vaultwarden, etc. I gave up on trying to selfhost sync solutions for Obsidian - Obsidian Sync is just so damn frictionless compared to all other solutions. Also, it feels good supporting the development of Obsidian.
After the tenth time iCloud absolutely destroyed my vault’s file layout and scattered copies of my files all over my iCloud Drive, I just gave up and shell out for paid sync now. It’s fine. I don’t mind paying for things I get actual value from.
protip: You can make synctrain sync with an iOS shortcut, with the shortcut being triggered when Obsidian is opened or closed. This means you're always in sync, even if iOS hasn't allowed synctrain to run in the background.
I did run with this setup for a few months (I believe like, 5 months already?) and when it works, it's nice, but 90% of the time it has been extremely painful.
Something breaks, one automatically updates and then it breaks the entire database, SCRAM mode, recovering is painful, and all the time I get warnings, spam and logs, it's anything but seamless.
Which is a real pity, because when it works it feels magical to use within my laptop, my phone and my tablet, all self hosted, but the pain won and so I'm searching for new alternatives.
I use this and a self-hosted couchdb. So far it seems to be good, but I haven't spent more than a few hours with it yet. I do have what appears to be a working setup on ios, macos, and linux. Obsidian's large number of plugins and control surfaces is a bit hazardous.
How is remotely save obsidian plugin mentioned only once here? I set it up with a OneDrive I was already using anyway to host and sync my vault there. I have it set up and synced on 4 devices with 4 different os (win11, macos, ios, android) and it works great and is free.
I'm doing the same since this is the only method I found I can let my bot access the files, something I couldn't achieve with Obsidian Sync.. until now!
I've had no trouble with syncthing on Android. It just has access to the sync folders, as far as I can tell. Seems to work great, even if I've got the same file open simultaneously on several devices. I use a tablet in my kitchen to show my TODO at all times.
I’ve just about got this working on ios using the a-shell app as a terminal to run the git commands, with shortcuts set to run them when Obsidian opens and closes.
You can git clone directly to your iOS file system which fixes the Obsidian git plugin issue so you can use the Obsidian git plugin on your computer and mobile devices.
I used iCloud in the past, but found that syncing between a few devices sometimes left my notes in a weird state - sometimes overwritten, missing, etc. I switched some time ago to https://github.com/remotely-save/remotely-save with backblaze and I periodically sync to a git repo for a second backup. No issues since then.
Paying for sync is my way of supporting the developers of this excellent application. The sync works well, it's less hassle, and more secure than using the usual cloud services, particularly for iOS and Android. Obsidian and Tailscale are the two pieces of software I gladly pay for, I don't ever want them enshittified!
The Obsidian CLI enables many scenarios not possible with the Markdown files alone: building and debugging plugins, running commands, controlling Obsidian, querying bases, accessing the Obsidian index, ...
I must be a fossil living under a rock, but: were they ever gone? As the amount of new CLI based applications I install on a monthly basis is always far more than the amount of new GUI based applications.
I think a lot of new developers used GUIs very exclusively for a very long time. Agentic workflows and Claude code have brought CLI tools to the forefront again.
A good example of this that I've noticed is a lot of newer devs were using GitHub Desktop or VS Code to manage git operations, but Claude gave them peek under the hood and now they're using it directly a bit more. Claude Code is a great gateway drug to CLI and TUI addiction
This got me thinking if it’s possible to use Obsidian as taskwarrior. I’ve used taskwarrior in the past but it’s CLI interface which is fine for simpler tasks. Lately, I’ve been trying to use Obsidian as task manager and addition of Bases paved path for taskwarrior like usage, but in GUI. Having options to use it as CLI and as GUI offers flexibility.
I also used some plugins like bugwarrior to sync Jira/GitHub tickets locally. This is perfect when working on multiple projects/repos.
But I guess moving from Unix one tool for each job to swiss knife tool makes Obsidian overwhelming. Maybe it’s better to bridge these two tools in some way (plugins) rather than misuse Obsidian features.
Okay, so my command line fu is not what it perhaps should be, but if I could use obsidian without the bloated app, I'd be even more in love.
How would I be able to search obsidian links from the command line?
Like, to travel between notes in the app of course I can just click on connecting links or search, but I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to do that in a cli.
Is there some handy way to search the current folder and subfolders for text in a file with regex? Like some kind of >find term for all of my [[term]] entries in markdown files ?
Not gp, but because the way hackernews would render in a web browser versus curl is dramatically different, of course. There's a clear separation of presentation and content, and curl shows you presentation.
Notes being plain text files means that what you get by showing via a CLI is essentially the same as just `cat whatever-it-is.md`. Viewing a note via the CLI interface could have its merits (it could apply its own flavor of presentation), but come on now. Your example doesn't hold.
I've used it with Claude Code for refactoring and helping write a really in depth D&D campaign. Using frontmatter, I can keep metadata about NPCs and characters synced across all files.
Fixes all the problems I've had about "In what order do I put this data" and flipping back and forth in a huge stack of papers.
Obsidian Headless and Obsidian CLI are two separate things. CLI requires running the full app, and lets you do anything Obsidian can do. Headless doesn't require the app but for now it is just a Sync client.
- Markdown files: Obsidian Sync merges the changes using Google's diff-match-patch algorithm.
- Other file types: For all other files, including canvases, Obsidian uses a "last modified wins" approach. The most recently modified version replaces earlier versions.
For conflicts in Obsidian settings, such as plugin settings, Obsidian Sync merges the JSON files. It applies keys from the local JSON on top of the remote JSON.
No question. Just wanted to drop by and say Obsidian is actually pretty cool. An absolute joy to use, and I only wish I learned about it earlier than I did.
Are there plans to support scoped token permissions (specific folders or even specific notes)? I'd love to try setting up something that automatically updates a specific Obsidian note on a state change or cronjob, but I'd want to avoid giving access to the rest of the vault.
also, thanks for the great product, bought the vip catalyst as a show of support.
Thanks for your support! Sync is end-to-end encrypted so the server doesn't know about specific paths in your vault. You would have to set those permissions at the filesystem level, or with the tool you're using.
I'm not sure how to make it work but like others in this thread I have an interest in sharing some - but not all - of my notes with some AI agents. Would love a solution that is built in to Obsidian / Obsidian Sync.
Related tangent: "Relay" (https://relay.md") lets you sync / share files based on directory (vs. the whole vault). That enables things like "my private vault contains a subdir for work, and my work machine syncs to only that child subdir".
Is there or do you plan to add some kind of webhook to notify interested parties that a vault has changed? I think it would go together nicely with the headless sync.
I’m using a couchdb instance to sync a bunch of local obsidian installs and use an obsidian plugin to keep them synced- would this change that or make it easier?
If your team is more technical Git is an option. If you want completely control over permissions and configuration then a shared drive is probably better.
It's a bit trickier than it seems because a lot of Obsidian configuration and app functionality is vault-specific. E.g. what theme should be used? What plugins should be available? Does autocomplete for [[links]] or properties do anything? Etc.
VSCode opens single files outside of projects. What do they do? Personally I wouldn’t mind if it just defaulted to the settings of the last-used vault.
If you don't have a window open, then VSCode opens with no active workspace. There are no workspace settings at all, and there is no file tree. But since VSCode has user level settings, these are what is used, including theming/etc.
If you have a window open, the file is opened to the workspace for that window. You can see this in action because the "Trust" dialog specifically says that you're trying to open untrusted files into a trusted workspace.
Just put the default settings in the same place other apps put their settings. With an option for a custom path so I can sync it between my devices via syncthing.
i am not sure its that tricky, just have some user settings that are loaded when you open individual markdown files. show a different ui or hide some parts of the ui if need be!
Yeah I often find myself with this need too and I really didn't want to open a huge Electron app each time I need to visualize or edit a simple md file.
Claude helped me vibe code a small rust editor : https://github.com/Karalix/markzap it's tuned to my usage, you should make your own too !
Obsidian is my favorite new tool. I started a new job last week and decided to spin it up on day one to help me onboard and learn their system. It’s been wildly successful, the missing piece I needed to really turn Claude Code into the learning and documentation tool I dreamed about.
This was my most-wanted Obsidian feature, so I’m thrilled to see this. It’s going to be great for server-side automation and RAG against Obsidian vaults.
Oh neat, I had come across the headless client yesterday (and submitted a now-fixed bug report for it after running into some issues).
Before opening HN this morning and seeing this post, I actually wrote a post about how I'm experimentally using headless to publish my blog: https://utf9k.net/blog/obsidian-headless/
Well, that post was my experiment but I'll be looking forward to trying it out going forward.
There are of course many alternatives and I'm sure this workflow may have its pains but for now, it feels like a lot less friction between actually writing and having it published.
I've used plain Git for many years of course but I've also tried other rube goldberg machines such as various Git-inside-Obsidian plugins and so on but there's always just a bunch of "stuff" between writing and putting it online.
It would be good since I don't use obsidian on my desktop but I do on my phone, so that way I can use it for syncing and then open the documents on Neovim on my desktop
This will save me the overhead of running it in a docker container (I think it used mono or something) so that’s cool.
I am still split using Evernote mostly because the experience feels a little more purpose built. I have some annoying usability issues with Obsidian. Control-N starts a new note not in the folder I’m in, but at the top level. Then I have to go move it by hand.
Having multiple vaults open winds up with multiple individual windows. A hack is to have one meta vault that encompasses all the sub vaults, but that itself is weird.
I would love to have an official multi-vault option. I have separate vaults so I can have work specific things or other things that aren’t exposing the fact I have other vaults tied to my account. However I have some systems I want all of my vaults available, but not multiple instances of obsidian running rather than one instance addressing all vaults - there is a workaround but it feels a too brittle and unofficial. The editor is a little rough comparatively too, even with a couple plugins to help, and I’m not even someone who cares to embed images, pdfs, other things directly in notes. Evernote is overkill and obsidian feels slightly off. Almost there. I’m sure it can be customized better, for example <li> items render well in Evernote but obsidian shows them as markdown and the switching between view, edit and realtime seems difficult to get right.
So I’m still paying for both… and I’d prefer not to. Obsidian feels like a better fit overall, I don’t care about all those Evernote features or AI or crazy rich experiences…
"obsidian shows them as markdown" = try editor settings ("Live Preview")
in terms of embedded vaults, I agree there should be better native support -- but I was also delighted to discover Relay (https://relay.md) which supports directory-level (not just vault-level) sync.
relay looks kind of like what I was hoping for, I think...
except it's ANOTHER charge then. I have more than 2 devices...
I'm confused as well, does this wind up hijacking / using its own syncing? It's not just a "skin" on top of Obsidian itself, to get the benefits of it you have to use their "sync client" ?
This feels like it's something that should be part of the core product or at least Obsidian's own Sync product
Yes, our sync engine is home-grown. We use CRDTs to provide real-time google-docs-like collaboration which is not something Obsidian supports (yet... i think they are working on it).
Note that you can self-host a Relay server and join it to our network. This gives you complete control over your data and unmetered storage. We do still charge for seats if you have more than 3 collaborators.
Nice! I rely on Obsidian a lot for syncing knowledge while working with Claude agents, such as storing research and daily logs to catch up on the prior day’s work. It already works quite well with a custom skill that I build, but this may make the workflow smoother.
It's nothing too fancy - I use Obsidian as a memory layer for both agents and myself. I keep a daily programming journal, and ask agents to update it as we work. I often have to nudge it to use the skill, but sometimes it asks me if I want to note things down. The core of the skills is just templates that teach claude how I like my notes formatted, and how my vault is laid out.
I find that it is useful as a way to quickly catch up a new session by asking it to read what we did yesterday or earlier that day.
The semantic search layer allows it to search further back in time, or find connections across unrelated notes. I built it because it used to waste a lot of tool calls with grep commands whenever I asked it to find something.
Not much, the main cost is having Claude write notes as we work, which isn't too different from what it does anyway with Plan mode, and it helps me onboard new sessions more easily. It also may save me some tokens because the tool I built helps it semantically search for relevant notes instead of wasting tool calls on grep and reading irrelevant documents.
Kinda related, does anyone have a favorite obsidian plugin for AI editing on mobile?
I wanna be able to talk to a document and iterate on it just like chatgpt with canvas but inside obsidian.
I've been digging around and haven't quite found anything to do that.
One potential challenge is I'm not sure how easy it would be to let it do tool calling to edit the document rather than spitting out the whole document each time (with risk of minor changes).
The thing is that there already is a very good self-hosted option for sync - Livesync. I won't say it's not eccentric and confusing (it is!) but once you get it to work, it actually works extremely well and is lightning fast too. I use syncthing as well for backups but livesync has the obvious advantage of working natively inside Obsidian.
I'm so done with subscriptions for cloud based solutions and between livesync and syncthing, you've got a very robust set of options to use.
iCloud sync actually messed up every file I opened due to the lag between remote copy and local edits. iCloud would delete the last few edits whether I was in the file or after closing the file. Sometimes I would be typing something and I'd watch it delete what I just typed. It was a complete disaster.
This is great, but as convenient as Obsidian Sync is, it'll never replace plain Git (for me) until it has unlimited version history:
> The retention period for your version history depends on your Obsidian Sync plan. On the Standard plan, notes are retained for 1 month, while on the Plus plan, they are kept for 12 months. After this period, older versions of your notes are deleted.
I have sync to support the amazing devs, and for convenience, and an automatic git-based backup that runs in the background. It's good to double dip sometimes
Yes, but just because it has version history doesn't mean it is closer to git than to Postgres. You can also do versioning in Postgres. You can even search more easily in the history.
Nice to see an official headless option. If anyone is looking to do headless syncing specifically to their own Synology NAS, I created an open-source alternative for that here: https://pypi.org/project/obsidian-synology-sync/
This reply does not address parents question at all.
A key feature of Obsidian is that it stores your notes in an open folder structure on your file system.
A very valid question is whether there are benefits to using a special note sync application rather than a standard file system sync application, and if so, what those benefits are.
I've been using Synology Drive to sync Obsidian between different machines and my android phone and it works great. I've never seen a need to use the official sync.
iOS makes it painful to use third-party sync protocols and servers, like syncthing can't run in the background, a git sync service can't run in the background, only iCloud gets to run in the background.... and whatever sync protocol the app itself has blessed so it can run immediately on opening the app.
As such, on iOS the native sync is the only one that works cleanly and seamlessly, and so you're incentivized to pay for it.
There was a little while, when dropbox was big, where it seemed like the future of computing would be "your data is in the cloud, and every app you use can share that data, and those two things are independent integrated through some common filesystem layer".
And then it ended up that no, your data's in a cloud-per-service, where your emails live in googles cloud, your documents in microsoft 365's cloud, your images in "adobe creative cloud"'s cloud, your photos in Apple's cloud, your passwords in 1Password's cloud, and your knowledgebase in Obsidian's cloud.
The dream of the filesystem API being able to expand to clouds, of being able to choose dropbox or google or apple as the owner of your data, and other applications seamlessly integrating with any of them, it died with apple making it impossible to offer any sort of generic filesystem API or even background sync.
And so, that's why you'd use obsidian sync over git, because you're cursed with using a phone.
Unless you're saying "why not pay for obsidian sync, but then sync it into a git repo in CI and commit there to see the diffs", not "why not use git as the underlying sync protocol", in which case ignore everything I wrote, you totally could do that.
Which gates "sync" behind an expensive "premium" paywall.
It feels criminal to charge that much for the sync feature when it also can't possibly work, iOS actively does not want apps to run in the background, and does not offer a viable method for this libgit wrapper to execute libgit on, for example, a filesystem inotify event or write or whatever.
What do you know, people are observing it doesn't really work.
> Apple's iOS has a pluggable Files system.
Okay, excellent, maybe you can tell me how to do this.
I have opened the builtin iOS notes app. It by default can sync notes with iCloud. I would like to have it store my notes in Git or Dropbox or anything else, and be able to also edit them on another machine and have the changes sync.
I won't hold my breath on how to do this because like clearly things are not pluggable, the builtin iOS apps don't work with anything but iCloud and the filesystem is obviously not pluggable or generic.
If you have automation that dumps things int your vault, that you built with their new CLI (which lets you create/tag docs etc. without running the full electron app), I guess this lets you sync those changes and propagate them to all of your obsidian sync clients also without having to open aforementioned full electron app.
Only in 2nd-brain mythology, which holds that you'll discover connections between your notes that you didn't realize was there. I think it started as eye candy to confuse prospective users considering Roam Notes. They later did something similar with their "Canvas" feature. So, these are features you get with their lack of coherent vision, rather than basic usability and a safe plugin ecosystem, neither of which Obsidian plans to deliver..
Let me provide a counter argument: with the graph you can browse your notes visually in 2D, instead of just the usual list. You can just take notes as usual, easily add #tags and [[links]] in them, and then when you go to graph view you can see connections between those links and you can color code or filter tags. You get a global graph view of all your vault, and local view of any note. Links and tags are literally the core Obsidian features and the graph view sits on top of that. For me that is a coherent vision and utility.
Sorry, the lack of vision I referred to related to Obsidian's leadership -- unserious D&D kids largely unconcerned with usability, performing security theatrics with sync e2ee while their users data is regularly at risk of mass exfiltration via their insanely dangerous community plugin ecosystem.
The on-screen appearance of the feature you're referring to may be visual and coherent, I'm just pointing out that users frequently cite theoretical or anticipated benefits of this feature, not real ones.
Using a headless client allows for easier management of changes in a structured way, especially in collaborative environments. While git is effective for versioning, Obsidian Sync may manage the graph's unique metadata and relationships more elegantly.
This is huge. I built SidianSidekicks and it is based on git because we don't want to lose your notes and thoughts, but convenience of Obsidan Sync are something that makes everything easy. I get this is in beta, and we will stick to git, but love what they are doing and looking forward to it.
Essentially Sync while you can emulate it on desktop, for mobile it is not good experience without Sync. And we want to have and record our thoughts with us all the time.
I use Obsidian with my Claude (and Codex) but not sure what additional value the CLI would provide since it's just markdown files. What am I missing that a CLI provides for AI? And not sure how the sync fits into it unless there's a copy of the vault that the AI is working with over CLI? Can use a tip.
For some reason obsidian sync consitently empties random recently opened notes for me. I think it might be some kind of race condition between icloud sync and obsidian sync. File gets touched before obsidian gets to it so the empty note is seen as a new file. That theory doesn't quite hold up though because the same thing happens to me using the android client. Has anyone here had this problem?
I had this happen a bunch when I was using iCloud sync on multiple devices. I think it was mostly solved by setting the directory to “keep downloaded” (right click on it in finder and it’s the second option).
That said, I’ve switched one vault to git and have had no issues there.
Ha! Just yesterday I set up a git repo to sync my Obsidian vault with my Ubuntu VPS for LLM use. Part of me wishes this had come out one day sooner, though honestly, I've grown to like the git workflow. The deal-breaker is mobile: it just doesn't play nicely there, so I'll keep using native sync for that.
Isn't there a script or a plugin to sync your vault to github, already?
(may be even to sync several vaults, for example to share vaults between colleagues)
This tool should finally make it possible to setup a good web interface to my obsidian notes. I have a hacky setup using github as the backend storage system but its slow.
Ive been surprised at how few people are interested in an obsidian browser tool, but its great if I want to read / write notes from a corporate laptop for example.
Have you guys thought about extending version history beyond a year, or at least allowing users to export it so that it's not permanently lost? I'd subscribe to Obsidian Sync for the rest of my life if it wasn't for this one missing feature.
I did the same, but sync takes it to another level - the conflict resolution is far better, especially when you have it on both desktop and mobile, and for multiple users on a team you can work on the same doc at the same time without worrying or having to check if Dropbox is working. Add the version history and it's a no-brainer.
Mobile app is pretty good, my biggest complaint is it won't sync in the background. It only syncs when you open it up. But it's well designed and fully functional.
There is a self-hosted live sync plugin. It's rough around the edges but it mostly works and is actively maintained, if you are willing to self-host a sync server.
I say mostly works, because there are a lot of "gotchas" and the configuration and set up are a bit intimidating for the clients (the server is simple to host).
I used it for a while and it was fine, but I decided the cost of a coffee per month is worth not having to maintain it, and I switched to paying for their sync service.
However, there is also a git sync plugin that works really nicely. But it is not a real-time sync and it is not supported on mobile (officially). I mainly use that as a way to keep long running backups of my vaults in a self-hosted gitea instance (the default paid tier only keeps one month of history).
Interesting...I've been thinking for a while that doing instructions and logs through my obsidian notes would be really helpful and a great way to do more agentic work. I've paid for obsidian sync as a way to support their team for the last 3 years, but color me impressed that there are some more tangible benefits to it!
That will never happen; their only money-making method is to limit the iOS app to sell their cloud. Otherwise, the desktop is already free with your own vault folder.
They are trying their hardest to prevent users from using Google Drive or other services natively. While it is just a small option to add, it will make everyone drop their $4 cloud subscription.
If that were true Obsidian would not allow third-party sync plugins in the official directory, and wouldn't mention third-party options in the official docs:
I just tried just to see if something changed, and I get this message when selecting Other:
###############
Other Syncing Methods:
Obsidian officially supports two syncing methods: Obsidian Sync and iCloud.
However, because obsidian gives you control over your data there are other sync options you can use.
These options include third-party plugins and other tools which may require more advanced setup.
To use an alternative sync method, create a vault and follow the instructions provided by the plugin or third-party sync provider.
###############
I went ahead and created a vault specifically to test this out, but I wasn't able to find any way to open Google Drive from within the app.
To give some context, I use KeePassium with a KeePass vault stored in my Google Drive, and it works seamlessly, I can browse to the directory and select my database right from the file picker. Unfortunately, that same experience doesn't seem to be available in Obsidian.
I'm a Windows user for work and don't use iCloud for anything, so Google Drive is really my go-to. I've tried multiple times to make it work, but it doesn't appear to be an option. As I understand it, Google Drive isn't natively selectable from Obsidian's iOS menu, and this wouldn't be a trivial thing to add since Google Drive appears as a folder in the native iOS file browser, which is exactly how I use it with other apps like KeePassium.
I've submitted this as a request on GitHub several times, and even mentioned that I'd happily pay a one-time fee to unlock this functionality. I'm not a fan of subscriptions personally, but I do believe in supporting developers for their work.
That said, if there truly is a way to use Google Drive with Obsidian on iOS, I'd genuinely love to see a step-by-step guide, could you share one?
Yeah, I figured as much. They don't work natively on iOS. And honestly, I get it. Sync is a key part of the revenue model, and a simple "select your vault from files" option, while it would solve the problem completely, isn't something that makes business sense to just give away. No judgment there. If I'd built something as great as Obsidian, I'd probably make the same call.
Since my only ask was really for a workaround or a link to a solution, I'm guessing there isn't one available, and the suggestion is more about exploring community plugins?
There's isn't an official one yet, but there are community options, or you could make your own. If you're wondering why this or that feature hasn't been added to Obsidian, remember we only have three full-time developers (and not trying to grow the team).
Fuck this business sense bullshit. If the feature can be built, it should be built. The is business at the expense of product, aka the reason everything sucks so much nowadays
I really love Obsidian and the direction they’re going with CLI. I think one of the most important things we can do while waiting for super intelligent assistants is capturing more of our thoughts and knowledge. Obsidian has been the tool I do that with.
Also new: Obsidian joins the CLI gang
https://help.obsidian.md/cli
I’ve been having a lot of fun recently using AI CLIs with Obsidian. No plugins necessary because it’s just a directory tree of markdown files.
I've been using iCloud to sync Obsidian, and have consistently run into the problem that iCloud file container access needs full disk permissions that I don't want to give the agent (or Ghostty). Does everybody use Obsidian's paid sync instead or what? Or SyncThing?
I just pay for the sync.
I like that I can have some vaults that sync to both my personal and work laptops and other vaults that only sync to one or the other.
It’s awfully convenient without any vendor lock in since I can just take my plain markdown files and leave anytime.
Another option is obsidian lets you set which folders should sync. So I have everything in one vault, and in my trusted environment I let have everything synced, work machine only gets the work folder, and windows gaming machine only gets required non-confidential stuff (i.e notes about stuff that isnt me).
Its nice to be able to review it all from one machine though
I used to use SyncThing, then Dropbox, then iCloud. But then I just caved and paid for Obsidian Sync and it is the best money spent aside from Claude. I don't have to tinker with weird settings anymore or deal with sync issues, it just works.
I can't wonder if that's by design to make it hard for a plugin to have it's own sync mechanism. Definitely not proof of this that I know of, but a thought.
Obsidian is plain Markdown and JSON files.
There can't be a will from the devs to make it hard to sync.
It's just that unlike git or Dropbox or whatever, that are just generic "syncing" tools, Obsidian Sync has been built to provide the best experience with Obsidian.
I'm talking more about the plugin architecture not about the file format or third-party applications. sync plugins seems to be pretty limited compared to what's offered for a subscription.
someone reverse engineered obsidian sync a couple years ago, but obsidian ended up “patching” it. Saw some recent discussion on here about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44768641
Seems fair to me.
Obsidian Sync has always been presented as a paid add-on, here to provide income for the company building Obsidian and giving it for free.
If they provided a direct BYOS(ync/erver) mechanism, less people would pay for the add-on, which is their source of income.
Instead, they let you use your own sync mechanism by only relying on text files.
I understand why some people could get upset about this, but they've always been transparent :
- no proprietary format ; can migrate at anytime without effort
- free but closed-sourced software
- add-ons for income
I’ve been using Obsidian with Dropbox sync for years. What’s so special about the Obsidian sync?
Obsidian with Dropbox can work on an iOS device?
With Obsidian Sync you manage everything directly in Obsidian: sync status, activity, history, selective sync...
And "it just works" across platform, without having to think about/set something else up.
it's not per-vault is it? I have multiple vaults I'd like to sync selectively (50% of files in one vault for one machine, and 100% on another etc.) No space restrictions?
I only use a single vault, so I'm afraid I can't answer to your question.
So when I talk about selective sync, it's about what is synced within a vault, and more specifically Obsidian settings/plugins...
I don't have the need to selectively sync only some of my vault's content, so never looked into it.
I just know that Obsidian Sync does what I'm expecting it to do.
And to add some context: I'd rather they just add a regular "Obsidian" sub that included vault sync; instead of giving away Obsidian for free, and selling add-ons. Because on itself, Obsidian Sync is quite expensive. If I'm willing to pay that much for that little, it's because, to me, I'm paying first for the development of Obsidian in itself.
But I understand why they wanted to go this way.
I don't know if it is/was the best move; because I see lots of people not willing to use Obsidian just because they are "scamming" people on their expensive Sync add-on.
Joplin has great sync support for a number of providers, Dropbox, Onedrive, Nextcloud, S3 etc, Obsidian supports none of these on iOS so I cant sync all my devices without having all my notes go to Obsidian servers and paying the fee.
Same
Definitely one of the biggest ROI is to pay for the sync. I regret all years I tried git-based alternatives (it's still useful to have it in git for backup, but not as the main syncing mechanism).
Just pay for the sync. I used to juggle with git, rsync, inotify etc and other tools
Its one of the few subscriptions where it actually feels like money well spent
I was using SyncThing, and it worked, but any time you have an Obsidian vault open on two devices, or shortly after another, you're always thinking about if you're going to have to clean up a bunch of sync conflict files later. And that mental overhead is not worth saving $4/mo.
The conflicts are never hard: it's like a git merge conflict where you just take the latest of every conflict block.
For me using SyncThing totally worth it, but I guess it's down to our income difference
I used multiple sync "solutions" (terrible idea, in retrospect); Dropsync, Syncthing, Drivesync, in addition to paying for Obsidian Sync, because I was delusional about "backing up my data". Huge mistake on my part, I've spent many, many, many hours deduplicating worthless "backups". Agree with "just pay for Obsidian Sync".
Mirrors my experience.
What tool can be used to resolve syncthing conflicts? I get a lot of.stversion files.
I try to selfhost most of my stuff I rely on. Immich, Vaultwarden, etc. I gave up on trying to selfhost sync solutions for Obsidian - Obsidian Sync is just so damn frictionless compared to all other solutions. Also, it feels good supporting the development of Obsidian.
I just pay for the sync. It probably helps I jumped on board when they still had early bird pricing for the sync
Im just running a Nextcloud on a raspberry pi to sync everything. Works flawlessly for multiple years now.
I gave up on iCloud sync.
After the tenth time iCloud absolutely destroyed my vault’s file layout and scattered copies of my files all over my iCloud Drive, I just gave up and shell out for paid sync now. It’s fine. I don’t mind paying for things I get actual value from.
Same. I lost data this way. It wasn't worth it. Happy to support Obsidian
I've been using Obsidian since the beginning, and it's the best money I can spend annually. It works perfectly, and I've never had any problems.
I use both and I prefer their builtin sync, since I also code on Linux.
I use Syncthing (with Synctrain client on iOS) and it works great.
protip: You can make synctrain sync with an iOS shortcut, with the shortcut being triggered when Obsidian is opened or closed. This means you're always in sync, even if iOS hasn't allowed synctrain to run in the background.
https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync
I did run with this setup for a few months (I believe like, 5 months already?) and when it works, it's nice, but 90% of the time it has been extremely painful.
Something breaks, one automatically updates and then it breaks the entire database, SCRAM mode, recovering is painful, and all the time I get warnings, spam and logs, it's anything but seamless.
Which is a real pity, because when it works it feels magical to use within my laptop, my phone and my tablet, all self hosted, but the pain won and so I'm searching for new alternatives.
I use this and a self-hosted couchdb. So far it seems to be good, but I haven't spent more than a few hours with it yet. I do have what appears to be a working setup on ios, macos, and linux. Obsidian's large number of plugins and control surfaces is a bit hazardous.
I've had good luck with syncthing. But I only sync between laptop and desktop.. the mobile story with syncthing isn't ideal.
I use syncthing on mobile with no problems. Depending on your settings it might not work on low battery though.
Why not? I've used it between my desktops and my phone with no problem for years.
I have been using remotely save and a free bucket from backblaze. It as a s3 compatible api so works using the s3 feature.
How is remotely save obsidian plugin mentioned only once here? I set it up with a OneDrive I was already using anyway to host and sync my vault there. I have it set up and synced on 4 devices with 4 different os (win11, macos, ios, android) and it works great and is free.
I'm doing the same since this is the only method I found I can let my bot access the files, something I couldn't achieve with Obsidian Sync.. until now!
I've had no trouble with syncthing on Android. It just has access to the sync folders, as far as I can tell. Seems to work great, even if I've got the same file open simultaneously on several devices. I use a tablet in my kitchen to show my TODO at all times.
I use git. push to private repo, you can use a cron in your machine to push regularly and so on.
The only limitation comes if you use the vault in a closed system like iOS, where you can't run terminal commands. other than that, flawless.
I’ve just about got this working on ios using the a-shell app as a terminal to run the git commands, with shortcuts set to run them when Obsidian opens and closes.
I built a one-time purchase solution that might help you.
- https://isolated.tech/apps/syncmd
- https://isolated.tech/apps/syncmd/blog/obsidian-git-ios-setu...
You can git clone directly to your iOS file system which fixes the Obsidian git plugin issue so you can use the Obsidian git plugin on your computer and mobile devices.
I used iCloud in the past, but found that syncing between a few devices sometimes left my notes in a weird state - sometimes overwritten, missing, etc. I switched some time ago to https://github.com/remotely-save/remotely-save with backblaze and I periodically sync to a git repo for a second backup. No issues since then.
Obsidian's paid sync works great for me.
If you mostly use single-vault Obsidian in two devices, SyncThing is perfect imo.
Paying for sync is my way of supporting the developers of this excellent application. The sync works well, it's less hassle, and more secure than using the usual cloud services, particularly for iOS and Android. Obsidian and Tailscale are the two pieces of software I gladly pay for, I don't ever want them enshittified!
github private repo works fine
Syncthing has worked flawlessly for me.
I use git on my own forgejo instance.
I first used the Obsidian git-sync plugin. That worked fine, but but when I couldn't get it operable with my phone I caved and paid for sync.
Resilio.
The Obsidian CLI enables many scenarios not possible with the Markdown files alone: building and debugging plugins, running commands, controlling Obsidian, querying bases, accessing the Obsidian index, ...
I love that CLIs are getting a second wind.
I must be a fossil living under a rock, but: were they ever gone? As the amount of new CLI based applications I install on a monthly basis is always far more than the amount of new GUI based applications.
I think a lot of new developers used GUIs very exclusively for a very long time. Agentic workflows and Claude code have brought CLI tools to the forefront again.
A good example of this that I've noticed is a lot of newer devs were using GitHub Desktop or VS Code to manage git operations, but Claude gave them peek under the hood and now they're using it directly a bit more. Claude Code is a great gateway drug to CLI and TUI addiction
> I love that CLIs are getting a second wind.
I just wish there were more solutions to add simple things like copy and paste to them.
As though they were more a derivative of the text box I type in right now. And less to MS-DOS I grew up with.
Outside of that, agreed. Eliminate GUI as a blocker.
It's surprising how that odds still an unsolved problem. That and trashcan integration
On MacOS, this is actually solved with the following native clis: pbcopy, pbpaste, trash.
This got me thinking if it’s possible to use Obsidian as taskwarrior. I’ve used taskwarrior in the past but it’s CLI interface which is fine for simpler tasks. Lately, I’ve been trying to use Obsidian as task manager and addition of Bases paved path for taskwarrior like usage, but in GUI. Having options to use it as CLI and as GUI offers flexibility.
I also used some plugins like bugwarrior to sync Jira/GitHub tickets locally. This is perfect when working on multiple projects/repos.
But I guess moving from Unix one tool for each job to swiss knife tool makes Obsidian overwhelming. Maybe it’s better to bridge these two tools in some way (plugins) rather than misuse Obsidian features.
Look at the video, it explicitly starts with dealing with tasks in Markdown files. Unintuitively if I might say so, but it does.
I agree that now that this is a possibility, some sort of a wrapper would be great to see.
Oh snap! Thanks for that, I can really make good use of this!
It's not super useful yet- you can't really view notes in the CLI but you can can trigger features like search.
Notes are stored in Markdown files. Why do you need Obsidian CLI to view notes when `cat` will do?
Okay, so my command line fu is not what it perhaps should be, but if I could use obsidian without the bloated app, I'd be even more in love.
How would I be able to search obsidian links from the command line?
Like, to travel between notes in the app of course I can just click on connecting links or search, but I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to do that in a cli.
Is there some handy way to search the current folder and subfolders for text in a file with regex? Like some kind of >find term for all of my [[term]] entries in markdown files ?
What is obsidian beyond a pile of markdown files without the app?
ripgrep?
Hackernews is accessed using http. Why do you need a web browser when curl exists?
Not gp, but because the way hackernews would render in a web browser versus curl is dramatically different, of course. There's a clear separation of presentation and content, and curl shows you presentation.
Notes being plain text files means that what you get by showing via a CLI is essentially the same as just `cat whatever-it-is.md`. Viewing a note via the CLI interface could have its merits (it could apply its own flavor of presentation), but come on now. Your example doesn't hold.
You can view notes with Obsidian CLI. See the "read" commands. But also you can do that with your built-in command line tools.
https://help.obsidian.md/cli
Thank you, that helped
I've used it with Claude Code for refactoring and helping write a really in depth D&D campaign. Using frontmatter, I can keep metadata about NPCs and characters synced across all files.
Fixes all the problems I've had about "In what order do I put this data" and flipping back and forth in a huge stack of papers.
Oh! I worked on this project. If anyone has questions, I'll do my best to answer them!
Wanted to say thanks. We were literally talking about the lack of a cli sync at work last week and I had moved to Syncthing because of that gap.
Definitely will be looking at the official Obsidian sync plan now.
Thank you for making Obsidian! I am wondering if you have any plans to package the headless sync client up for container use in Docker or Podman?
Also, is the Obsidian CLI available when obsidian-headless is installed? Or is obsidian-headless only a sync client at this time?
Obsidian Headless and Obsidian CLI are two separate things. CLI requires running the full app, and lets you do anything Obsidian can do. Headless doesn't require the app but for now it is just a Sync client.
https://help.obsidian.md/headless
https://help.obsidian.md/cli
How are sync conflicts handled in the filesystem? Say I write to a file and another client's edit wins and mine is rejected.
The headless Obsidian Sync client works the same way as desktop and mobile clients, see:
https://help.obsidian.md/sync/troubleshoot
- Markdown files: Obsidian Sync merges the changes using Google's diff-match-patch algorithm.
- Other file types: For all other files, including canvases, Obsidian uses a "last modified wins" approach. The most recently modified version replaces earlier versions.
For conflicts in Obsidian settings, such as plugin settings, Obsidian Sync merges the JSON files. It applies keys from the local JSON on top of the remote JSON.
No question. Just wanted to drop by and say Obsidian is actually pretty cool. An absolute joy to use, and I only wish I learned about it earlier than I did.
Are there plans to support scoped token permissions (specific folders or even specific notes)? I'd love to try setting up something that automatically updates a specific Obsidian note on a state change or cronjob, but I'd want to avoid giving access to the rest of the vault.
also, thanks for the great product, bought the vip catalyst as a show of support.
Thanks for your support! Sync is end-to-end encrypted so the server doesn't know about specific paths in your vault. You would have to set those permissions at the filesystem level, or with the tool you're using.
I'm not sure how to make it work but like others in this thread I have an interest in sharing some - but not all - of my notes with some AI agents. Would love a solution that is built in to Obsidian / Obsidian Sync.
Related tangent: "Relay" (https://relay.md") lets you sync / share files based on directory (vs. the whole vault). That enables things like "my private vault contains a subdir for work, and my work machine syncs to only that child subdir".
It would be nice if one could sync dot files in the vault. For example, the .claude or .pi folder containing skills and whatnot.
Yes, we're looking into that!
Is there or do you plan to add some kind of webhook to notify interested parties that a vault has changed? I think it would go together nicely with the headless sync.
I’m using a couchdb instance to sync a bunch of local obsidian installs and use an obsidian plugin to keep them synced- would this change that or make it easier?
Any plans of providing an official obsidian-cli Skill for LLMs?
Because this is 99% going to be used by AI Agents =)
https://github.com/kepano/obsidian-skills
Do you have a good starting point or explanation to share about using obsidian for a team, where we all change/sync files?
Depends on the size of the team and your requirements. The Obsidian team uses a shared Sync vault, which works well for us:
https://help.obsidian.md/teams/sync
If your team is more technical Git is an option. If you want completely control over permissions and configuration then a shared drive is probably better.
https://help.obsidian.md/teams/deploy
No questions, just thanks for helping with a great product.
I wish I could use Obsidian to edit single markdown files.
If my project has a readme.md I don't want to create an obsidian vault with its configuration files in my project, just to open it.
Yeah we'll add that at some point.
It's a bit trickier than it seems because a lot of Obsidian configuration and app functionality is vault-specific. E.g. what theme should be used? What plugins should be available? Does autocomplete for [[links]] or properties do anything? Etc.
VSCode opens single files outside of projects. What do they do? Personally I wouldn’t mind if it just defaulted to the settings of the last-used vault.
If you don't have a window open, then VSCode opens with no active workspace. There are no workspace settings at all, and there is no file tree. But since VSCode has user level settings, these are what is used, including theming/etc.
If you have a window open, the file is opened to the workspace for that window. You can see this in action because the "Trust" dialog specifically says that you're trying to open untrusted files into a trusted workspace.
maybe you're overthinking it a little. You could make it of a default setup like the one you use for the sandbox, or some curated fast-loading one
Just put the default settings in the same place other apps put their settings. With an option for a custom path so I can sync it between my devices via syncthing.
i am not sure its that tricky, just have some user settings that are loaded when you open individual markdown files. show a different ui or hide some parts of the ui if need be!
Yeah I often find myself with this need too and I really didn't want to open a huge Electron app each time I need to visualize or edit a simple md file.
Claude helped me vibe code a small rust editor : https://github.com/Karalix/markzap it's tuned to my usage, you should make your own too !
Please.
Obsidian is my favorite new tool. I started a new job last week and decided to spin it up on day one to help me onboard and learn their system. It’s been wildly successful, the missing piece I needed to really turn Claude Code into the learning and documentation tool I dreamed about.
This was my most-wanted Obsidian feature, so I’m thrilled to see this. It’s going to be great for server-side automation and RAG against Obsidian vaults.
Oh neat, I had come across the headless client yesterday (and submitted a now-fixed bug report for it after running into some issues).
Before opening HN this morning and seeing this post, I actually wrote a post about how I'm experimentally using headless to publish my blog: https://utf9k.net/blog/obsidian-headless/
Well, that post was my experiment but I'll be looking forward to trying it out going forward.
There are of course many alternatives and I'm sure this workflow may have its pains but for now, it feels like a lot less friction between actually writing and having it published.
I've used plain Git for many years of course but I've also tried other rube goldberg machines such as various Git-inside-Obsidian plugins and so on but there's always just a bunch of "stuff" between writing and putting it online.
It would be good since I don't use obsidian on my desktop but I do on my phone, so that way I can use it for syncing and then open the documents on Neovim on my desktop
This will save me the overhead of running it in a docker container (I think it used mono or something) so that’s cool.
I am still split using Evernote mostly because the experience feels a little more purpose built. I have some annoying usability issues with Obsidian. Control-N starts a new note not in the folder I’m in, but at the top level. Then I have to go move it by hand.
Having multiple vaults open winds up with multiple individual windows. A hack is to have one meta vault that encompasses all the sub vaults, but that itself is weird.
I would love to have an official multi-vault option. I have separate vaults so I can have work specific things or other things that aren’t exposing the fact I have other vaults tied to my account. However I have some systems I want all of my vaults available, but not multiple instances of obsidian running rather than one instance addressing all vaults - there is a workaround but it feels a too brittle and unofficial. The editor is a little rough comparatively too, even with a couple plugins to help, and I’m not even someone who cares to embed images, pdfs, other things directly in notes. Evernote is overkill and obsidian feels slightly off. Almost there. I’m sure it can be customized better, for example <li> items render well in Evernote but obsidian shows them as markdown and the switching between view, edit and realtime seems difficult to get right.
So I’m still paying for both… and I’d prefer not to. Obsidian feels like a better fit overall, I don’t care about all those Evernote features or AI or crazy rich experiences…
> Control-N starts a new note not in the folder I’m in, but at the top level
Settings → Default location for new notes → Same folder as current file
> <li> items render well in Evernote but obsidian shows them as markdown
Settings → Editor → Default editing mode → Live Preview
I will double check this, I was pretty sure I've done this already (seemed obvious) but perhaps something weird happened with the binding
ahhhhhhhhhh I thought it was a hotkey difference, I thought I've gone through all the settings many times, but maybe not. Found it. thank you!
"obsidian shows them as markdown" = try editor settings ("Live Preview")
in terms of embedded vaults, I agree there should be better native support -- but I was also delighted to discover Relay (https://relay.md) which supports directory-level (not just vault-level) sync.
relay looks kind of like what I was hoping for, I think...
except it's ANOTHER charge then. I have more than 2 devices...
I'm confused as well, does this wind up hijacking / using its own syncing? It's not just a "skin" on top of Obsidian itself, to get the benefits of it you have to use their "sync client" ?
This feels like it's something that should be part of the core product or at least Obsidian's own Sync product
Hey, developer behind Relay here.
Yes, our sync engine is home-grown. We use CRDTs to provide real-time google-docs-like collaboration which is not something Obsidian supports (yet... i think they are working on it).
Note that you can self-host a Relay server and join it to our network. This gives you complete control over your data and unmetered storage. We do still charge for seats if you have more than 3 collaborators.
Nice! I rely on Obsidian a lot for syncing knowledge while working with Claude agents, such as storing research and daily logs to catch up on the prior day’s work. It already works quite well with a custom skill that I build, but this may make the workflow smoother.
I also built a cli tool to index embeddings in LanceDB and do semantic search. It helps agents create better internal links between notes. https://github.com/ravila4/obsidian-semantic-search
Can you share more details on your setup with Claude Code ?
It's nothing too fancy - I use Obsidian as a memory layer for both agents and myself. I keep a daily programming journal, and ask agents to update it as we work. I often have to nudge it to use the skill, but sometimes it asks me if I want to note things down. The core of the skills is just templates that teach claude how I like my notes formatted, and how my vault is laid out.
I find that it is useful as a way to quickly catch up a new session by asking it to read what we did yesterday or earlier that day.
The semantic search layer allows it to search further back in time, or find connections across unrelated notes. I built it because it used to waste a lot of tool calls with grep commands whenever I asked it to find something.
I'm still iterating, but I put together a repo with some of the skills that I find most useful for organization: https://github.com/ravila4/claude-adhd-skills
Have you ever considered using a knowledge graph?
How does this affect your token/quota usage?
Not much, the main cost is having Claude write notes as we work, which isn't too different from what it does anyway with Plan mode, and it helps me onboard new sessions more easily. It also may save me some tokens because the tool I built helps it semantically search for relevant notes instead of wasting tool calls on grep and reading irrelevant documents.
For just text notes is very low token usage, i use Opus for everything and a whole week of notes is like 30m of a coding session
Kinda related, does anyone have a favorite obsidian plugin for AI editing on mobile?
I wanna be able to talk to a document and iterate on it just like chatgpt with canvas but inside obsidian.
I've been digging around and haven't quite found anything to do that.
One potential challenge is I'm not sure how easy it would be to let it do tool calling to edit the document rather than spitting out the whole document each time (with risk of minor changes).
I've tried a bunch of them only to settle on using Claude Code with remote control.
The thing is that there already is a very good self-hosted option for sync - Livesync. I won't say it's not eccentric and confusing (it is!) but once you get it to work, it actually works extremely well and is lightning fast too. I use syncthing as well for backups but livesync has the obvious advantage of working natively inside Obsidian.
I'm so done with subscriptions for cloud based solutions and between livesync and syncthing, you've got a very robust set of options to use.
iCloud sync actually messed up every file I opened due to the lag between remote copy and local edits. iCloud would delete the last few edits whether I was in the file or after closing the file. Sometimes I would be typing something and I'd watch it delete what I just typed. It was a complete disaster.
On the other hand, I'll happily support the developers at Obsidian. It's a great product.
Thanks for the recommendation! Will get this set up for sure
This is great, but as convenient as Obsidian Sync is, it'll never replace plain Git (for me) until it has unlimited version history:
> The retention period for your version history depends on your Obsidian Sync plan. On the Standard plan, notes are retained for 1 month, while on the Plus plan, they are kept for 12 months. After this period, older versions of your notes are deleted.
You can use this to sync changes in (near) realtime and then either commit them to git, or use some other mechanism to increase retention.
Then you have two solutions to maintain when one would suffice.
But one (git) doesn't suffice, it's way more limited for real-time sync when phones are involved
I have sync to support the amazing devs, and for convenience, and an automatic git-based backup that runs in the background. It's good to double dip sometimes
It also won't replace Postgres, because that is also a different thing.
What do you mean? Version history is explicitly a feature of Obsidian Sync: https://help.obsidian.md/Obsidian+Sync/Version+history
Yes, but just because it has version history doesn't mean it is closer to git than to Postgres. You can also do versioning in Postgres. You can even search more easily in the history.
I assume they meant "it will never replace Git for syncing Obsidian".
Nice to see an official headless option. If anyone is looking to do headless syncing specifically to their own Synology NAS, I created an open-source alternative for that here: https://pypi.org/project/obsidian-synology-sync/
I know this is headless but is there any other reason I should use this over the official Synology drive app?
The official Sync is focused on providing a more integrated experience in the Obsidian app
- Built-in version history
- Cross-platform support, especially on mobile
- Fine-grained control (e.g. different theme/plugins/settings per device)
- Sharing your vaults with other users
Synology Drive is a file and folder syncing system.
Obsidian is a note and wiki syncing system.
You should use an obsidian syncing system if you want to sync notes and wikis. You should use a file syncing system if you want to sync files.
This reply does not address parents question at all.
A key feature of Obsidian is that it stores your notes in an open folder structure on your file system.
A very valid question is whether there are benefits to using a special note sync application rather than a standard file system sync application, and if so, what those benefits are.
I've been using Synology Drive to sync Obsidian between different machines and my android phone and it works great. I've never seen a need to use the official sync.
Why would you use this over plain git in a CI pipeline? Presumably you need your knowledge graph versioned?
iOS makes it painful to use third-party sync protocols and servers, like syncthing can't run in the background, a git sync service can't run in the background, only iCloud gets to run in the background.... and whatever sync protocol the app itself has blessed so it can run immediately on opening the app.
As such, on iOS the native sync is the only one that works cleanly and seamlessly, and so you're incentivized to pay for it.
There was a little while, when dropbox was big, where it seemed like the future of computing would be "your data is in the cloud, and every app you use can share that data, and those two things are independent integrated through some common filesystem layer".
And then it ended up that no, your data's in a cloud-per-service, where your emails live in googles cloud, your documents in microsoft 365's cloud, your images in "adobe creative cloud"'s cloud, your photos in Apple's cloud, your passwords in 1Password's cloud, and your knowledgebase in Obsidian's cloud.
The dream of the filesystem API being able to expand to clouds, of being able to choose dropbox or google or apple as the owner of your data, and other applications seamlessly integrating with any of them, it died with apple making it impossible to offer any sort of generic filesystem API or even background sync.
And so, that's why you'd use obsidian sync over git, because you're cursed with using a phone.
Unless you're saying "why not pay for obsidian sync, but then sync it into a git repo in CI and commit there to see the diffs", not "why not use git as the underlying sync protocol", in which case ignore everything I wrote, you totally could do that.
> it died with apple making it impossible to offer any sort of generic filesystem API or even background sync
Apple's cloud storage remained WebDAV a very very long time.
Apple's iOS has a pluggable Files system. Use Working Copy to give other apps access to folders sync'd with git: https://workingcopy.app
Or a dedicated app like GitSync: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gitsync/id6744980427
> Or a dedicated app like GitSync
Which gates "sync" behind an expensive "premium" paywall.
It feels criminal to charge that much for the sync feature when it also can't possibly work, iOS actively does not want apps to run in the background, and does not offer a viable method for this libgit wrapper to execute libgit on, for example, a filesystem inotify event or write or whatever.
https://github.com/ViscousPot/GitSync/issues/807#issuecommen...
What do you know, people are observing it doesn't really work.
> Apple's iOS has a pluggable Files system.
Okay, excellent, maybe you can tell me how to do this.
I have opened the builtin iOS notes app. It by default can sync notes with iCloud. I would like to have it store my notes in Git or Dropbox or anything else, and be able to also edit them on another machine and have the changes sync.
I won't hold my breath on how to do this because like clearly things are not pluggable, the builtin iOS apps don't work with anything but iCloud and the filesystem is obviously not pluggable or generic.
Gotcha, thanks. I just use git but don’t sync to my iPhone, this helps give context on the value prop there.
If you have automation that dumps things int your vault, that you built with their new CLI (which lets you create/tag docs etc. without running the full electron app), I guess this lets you sync those changes and propagate them to all of your obsidian sync clients also without having to open aforementioned full electron app.
Quoting[1] kepano (CEO of Obsidian) - Why you might use Obsidian Sync headless:
- Automate remote backups
- Automate publishing a website
- Give agentic tools access to a vault without access to your full computer
- Sync a shared team vault to a server that feeds other tools
- Run scheduled automations e.g. aggregate daily notes into weekly summaries, auto-tag, etc
...all while having the speed, privacy, customizability, end-to-end encryption of Obsidian Sync.
[1]: https://x.com/kepano/status/2027485552451432936
To enjoy the native ease of use and security of Obsidian Sync as a human user on your devices; while being able to automate things on a server.
Does the knowledge graph have a function other than to show off how big your vault is?
Only in 2nd-brain mythology, which holds that you'll discover connections between your notes that you didn't realize was there. I think it started as eye candy to confuse prospective users considering Roam Notes. They later did something similar with their "Canvas" feature. So, these are features you get with their lack of coherent vision, rather than basic usability and a safe plugin ecosystem, neither of which Obsidian plans to deliver..
Let me provide a counter argument: with the graph you can browse your notes visually in 2D, instead of just the usual list. You can just take notes as usual, easily add #tags and [[links]] in them, and then when you go to graph view you can see connections between those links and you can color code or filter tags. You get a global graph view of all your vault, and local view of any note. Links and tags are literally the core Obsidian features and the graph view sits on top of that. For me that is a coherent vision and utility.
Sorry, the lack of vision I referred to related to Obsidian's leadership -- unserious D&D kids largely unconcerned with usability, performing security theatrics with sync e2ee while their users data is regularly at risk of mass exfiltration via their insanely dangerous community plugin ecosystem.
The on-screen appearance of the feature you're referring to may be visual and coherent, I'm just pointing out that users frequently cite theoretical or anticipated benefits of this feature, not real ones.
Using a headless client allows for easier management of changes in a structured way, especially in collaborative environments. While git is effective for versioning, Obsidian Sync may manage the graph's unique metadata and relationships more elegantly.
I just use Dropbox with dropsync on my phone. I never use the knowledge graph anyway
This is huge. I built SidianSidekicks and it is based on git because we don't want to lose your notes and thoughts, but convenience of Obsidan Sync are something that makes everything easy. I get this is in beta, and we will stick to git, but love what they are doing and looking forward to it.
Essentially Sync while you can emulate it on desktop, for mobile it is not good experience without Sync. And we want to have and record our thoughts with us all the time.
I have probably searched "Obsidian CLI" once a month since I started playing around with AI over a year ago. This is pretty exciting.
I use Obsidian with my Claude (and Codex) but not sure what additional value the CLI would provide since it's just markdown files. What am I missing that a CLI provides for AI? And not sure how the sync fits into it unless there's a copy of the vault that the AI is working with over CLI? Can use a tip.
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For some reason obsidian sync consitently empties random recently opened notes for me. I think it might be some kind of race condition between icloud sync and obsidian sync. File gets touched before obsidian gets to it so the empty note is seen as a new file. That theory doesn't quite hold up though because the same thing happens to me using the android client. Has anyone here had this problem?
I had this happen a bunch when I was using iCloud sync on multiple devices. I think it was mostly solved by setting the directory to “keep downloaded” (right click on it in finder and it’s the second option).
That said, I’ve switched one vault to git and have had no issues there.
This one is compatible (mostly) and doesnt require obsidian to run https://github.com/the-shift-dev/napkin
Oh wow thats good timing. I DIY’ed a workaround for this only last week for my openclaw instance. Happy to change it to this! https://jakobs.dev/granular-notes-access-limiting-openclaw-b...
Wait… I’m not supposed to to just use Nextcloud and treat it as a local folder of markdown files?
Damn… I’m doing it all wrong!!
How does your cloud resolve simultaneous edit conflicts?
Ha! Just yesterday I set up a git repo to sync my Obsidian vault with my Ubuntu VPS for LLM use. Part of me wishes this had come out one day sooner, though honestly, I've grown to like the git workflow. The deal-breaker is mobile: it just doesn't play nicely there, so I'll keep using native sync for that.
Isn't there a script or a plugin to sync your vault to github, already? (may be even to sync several vaults, for example to share vaults between colleagues)
This tool should finally make it possible to setup a good web interface to my obsidian notes. I have a hacky setup using github as the backend storage system but its slow.
Ive been surprised at how few people are interested in an obsidian browser tool, but its great if I want to read / write notes from a corporate laptop for example.
I'm having a hard time understanding when I would use this. Could someone provide some examples?
I just had Claude go through my Journal/ and mark 800 obsolete daily tasks as done so that they don't clutter my reports anymore.
Any kind of automation, really. Much easier than just raw editing the markdown in some cases.
I just built a headless sync client a few days ago. Happy that there's now an official solution!
Finally! I had to set up a container with X on my headless server to get a few text files reliably synced, crazy stuff.
I just have my vault sitting in Dropbox ... Not sure what I would gain by moving to Sync?
End-to-end encryption, integrated version history, better mobile support, granular control over which settings and files are synced to each device.
And generally help the continued development of Obsidian so we can stay 100% user-supported.
https://stephango.com/vcware
Have you guys thought about extending version history beyond a year, or at least allowing users to export it so that it's not permanently lost? I'd subscribe to Obsidian Sync for the rest of my life if it wasn't for this one missing feature.
Yes, I'd like to add that.
Access on mobile would be main reason. Perhaps that’s an iOS limitation, and Dropbox on Android is just a perfect replacement.
I did the same, but sync takes it to another level - the conflict resolution is far better, especially when you have it on both desktop and mobile, and for multiple users on a team you can work on the same doc at the same time without worrying or having to check if Dropbox is working. Add the version history and it's a no-brainer.
Not losing data when you edit your note on two devices
How’s their mobile all these days?
Along with sync that was the other blocker for me always.
Mobile app is pretty good, my biggest complaint is it won't sync in the background. It only syncs when you open it up. But it's well designed and fully functional.
No promises but I hope we can solve that this year. I agree it would be a much better experience.
Looking forward to it! Just wanted to say thanks for helping to build Obsidian. It's a great piece of software.
That a nuisance as I spend a lot of time on the subway without service but not a total dealbreaker
What’s the best way to sync Obsidian without upgrading to their paid tier?
There is a self-hosted live sync plugin. It's rough around the edges but it mostly works and is actively maintained, if you are willing to self-host a sync server.
I say mostly works, because there are a lot of "gotchas" and the configuration and set up are a bit intimidating for the clients (the server is simple to host).
I used it for a while and it was fine, but I decided the cost of a coffee per month is worth not having to maintain it, and I switched to paying for their sync service.
However, there is also a git sync plugin that works really nicely. But it is not a real-time sync and it is not supported on mobile (officially). I mainly use that as a way to keep long running backups of my vaults in a self-hosted gitea instance (the default paid tier only keeps one month of history).
GitHub: https://dev.to/padiazg/how-to-sync-your-obsidian-vault-using...
For my work notes, which are not allowed to be stored outside company resources, I have set up a git repo and use a plugin that auto commits.
It does not work well for sharing to a mobile env but works great for desktop.
If you’re on Apple devices only, then iCloud sync is free and works on all devices.
I no longer use Obsidian, so not sure what’s the best option for e.g. Linux <-> iOS sync except their service.
I'm quite fond of the obsidian-gut plugin and syncing to a private Forgejo instance.
I use syncthing to sync my notes between my PC and Laptop. It works pretty well.
What is the use case for this? Not being a dick. I think it's a me problem. I use Obsidian and love it, but I'm struggling to see the appeal of this.
- Automate remote backups
- Automate publishing a website
- Sync a shared team vault to a server that feeds other tools
- Give tools like OpenClaw access to a vault without access to your full computer
- Run scheduled automations e.g. aggregate daily notes into weekly summaries, auto-tag, etc
Thank you
It's literally in the second sentence.
Obsidian Sync offers a headless client to sync vaults without using the desktop app. Useful for CI pipelines, agents, and automated workflows
I did see that but it did not help me understand the specific use cases. Someone else did, though.
Will this ever be able to work with a self hosted server?
It still needs obsidian running... So not really head less
Interesting...I've been thinking for a while that doing instructions and logs through my obsidian notes would be really helpful and a great way to do more agentic work. I've paid for obsidian sync as a way to support their team for the last 3 years, but color me impressed that there are some more tangible benefits to it!
what does this mean ? can i self host stuff ?
Fantastic! Now I don't need to run it in a headless xorg session.
Great, now it can corrupt my data headlessly too.
Too late
Now make Dropbox sync work with iPhone
That will never happen; their only money-making method is to limit the iOS app to sell their cloud. Otherwise, the desktop is already free with your own vault folder.
They are trying their hardest to prevent users from using Google Drive or other services natively. While it is just a small option to add, it will make everyone drop their $4 cloud subscription.
If that were true Obsidian would not allow third-party sync plugins in the official directory, and wouldn't mention third-party options in the official docs:
https://help.obsidian.md/sync-notes
The goal for Obsidian Sync is to be the best option, not the only option.
I just tried just to see if something changed, and I get this message when selecting Other:
###############
Other Syncing Methods:
Obsidian officially supports two syncing methods: Obsidian Sync and iCloud.
However, because obsidian gives you control over your data there are other sync options you can use.
These options include third-party plugins and other tools which may require more advanced setup.
To use an alternative sync method, create a vault and follow the instructions provided by the plugin or third-party sync provider.
###############
I went ahead and created a vault specifically to test this out, but I wasn't able to find any way to open Google Drive from within the app.
To give some context, I use KeePassium with a KeePass vault stored in my Google Drive, and it works seamlessly, I can browse to the directory and select my database right from the file picker. Unfortunately, that same experience doesn't seem to be available in Obsidian.
I'm a Windows user for work and don't use iCloud for anything, so Google Drive is really my go-to. I've tried multiple times to make it work, but it doesn't appear to be an option. As I understand it, Google Drive isn't natively selectable from Obsidian's iOS menu, and this wouldn't be a trivial thing to add since Google Drive appears as a folder in the native iOS file browser, which is exactly how I use it with other apps like KeePassium.
I've submitted this as a request on GitHub several times, and even mentioned that I'd happily pay a one-time fee to unlock this functionality. I'm not a fan of subscriptions personally, but I do believe in supporting developers for their work.
That said, if there truly is a way to use Google Drive with Obsidian on iOS, I'd genuinely love to see a step-by-step guide, could you share one?
There are several community plugins for Google Drive. Did you try those?
Yeah, I figured as much. They don't work natively on iOS. And honestly, I get it. Sync is a key part of the revenue model, and a simple "select your vault from files" option, while it would solve the problem completely, isn't something that makes business sense to just give away. No judgment there. If I'd built something as great as Obsidian, I'd probably make the same call.
Since my only ask was really for a workaround or a link to a solution, I'm guessing there isn't one available, and the suggestion is more about exploring community plugins?
There's isn't an official one yet, but there are community options, or you could make your own. If you're wondering why this or that feature hasn't been added to Obsidian, remember we only have three full-time developers (and not trying to grow the team).
Fuck this business sense bullshit. If the feature can be built, it should be built. The is business at the expense of product, aka the reason everything sucks so much nowadays
We can't do much. He is the CEO of Obsidian, and he won't respond either. I guess it is time to build an alternative with these functions in place.
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I really love Obsidian and the direction they’re going with CLI. I think one of the most important things we can do while waiting for super intelligent assistants is capturing more of our thoughts and knowledge. Obsidian has been the tool I do that with.