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.
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:
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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.
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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
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!
Startup time in Obsidian could be better (we're working on it!), but performance is more than startup time. It's making interactions fast throughout the entire app. Obsidian is only three developers but we spend a lot of time shaving off milliseconds everywhere we can. Keystrokes, scrolling, querying, navigating large vaults, opening and parsing large Markdown files, etc.
In 2025 we made reduced startup time on mobile under 0.5s (used to be several seconds), made search nearly instantaneous and released Bases to make complex queries equally fast (much faster than Dataview and other pre-existing solutions).
Thank you for this work! I had tried Obsidian every year or so and the performance switching/opening notes drove me crazy in the past. I like it to feel instant and I'm more sensitive to UI performance than others. Just tried again, and it passes the threshold for me!
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.
- 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
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