Android 16: Vault file reading suddenly became extremely slow

Bug reports
1

Note: I am a non-native English speaker and am using a translation tool to write this report.

Android 16: Vault file reading suddenly became extremely slow

Description

Since approximately three days ago, Obsidian on my Android device has become significantly slower to start and load a vault.

The delay occurs almost entirely while reading vault files.

Startup time breakdown

  • Obsidian version: 1.13.8 (367)
  • API version: 1.13.8
  • Operating system: Android 16
  • Device: FCNT M08
  • Vault: 213 files
  • Total startup time: ~13 seconds
  • Vault: ~11 seconds
  • Reading files: ~10.8–11.9 seconds

For example:

Vault (213 files): 10,811ms
Configuration: 27ms
Reading files: 10,777ms
Loading file metadata: 6ms
Metadata listeners: 1ms

In another startup:

Vault (213 files): 11,934ms
Configuration: 27ms
Reading files: 11,899ms
Loading file metadata: 6ms
Metadata listeners: 2ms

The vault is stored in Android shared storage.

Troubleshooting

I have confirmed that the issue is not caused by community plugins or syncing:

  • The issue persists in Restricted Mode.
  • Disabling syncing does not improve startup time.
  • I copied the entire vault folder and opened the copy as a new vault. The issue still occurs.
  • The copied vault also contains 213 files and takes approximately 10.8 seconds just for “Reading files”.

The other parts of startup are comparatively fast. For example, Initialization is around 0.6–0.7 seconds and Workspace is around 0.3 seconds.

This suggests that the problem is specifically related to reading files from the vault rather than plugins, syncing, or the workspace.

Expected behavior

A vault containing only 213 files should load considerably faster.

Actual behavior

Reading the 213 files takes approximately 11 seconds, and this behavior appeared suddenly around two days ago without any intentional changes to my Obsidian configuration, plugins, or vault.

I would appreciate it if this could be investigated as a possible Android-specific regression.

I can provide additional startup breakdowns, logs, or perform further tests if needed.

2

Hey! I had a similar issue (that I wasn’t able to fix entirely), but the 213 files that show there could be misleading. For instance, in my case I had a node_modules folder that ended up inside my vault by mistake. This means there were thousands and thousands of small files that Obsidian would need to check on startup that didn’t count towards the total due to them being in the plugins folder.

I would try to create a new vault without the .obsidian folder and check if the issue persists. If it does, I don’t really know how to help, but if it’s fixed it’s because you probably have too many things in there. Hope this helps