Use case or problem
I have two vaults, WORK and PERSONAL. I don’t want the UI to be different between them (hotkeys, plugins, themes), but at the same time, I don’t want them to be merged into a single vault.
I don’t want my favorite movies note popping up when I’m at work. It’s clutter and distracting.
Proposed solution
Like many others, having multiple vaults = a lot of maintenance keeping the settings/plugins the same across them. I read many posts about this with many hacks and work arounds to keep them synced. A lot of feature requests for .obsidian folder synchronization.
My idea is taking a different approach. I say, have a single vault with all your settings, but change what is visible. Like the core plugin Workspaces, where it saves tab layout and positioning; why not take it one step further to add what type of notes you want visible. This could use Tags or utilize the new properties feature to filter what you want to see.
An example is I would have all my WORK notes tagged #work, in the Workspaces plugin, you could setup a workspace to only show files with #work. This means only these files would be shown in the File Explorer pane (or maybe a new workspace pane where the files are filtered). To obsidian, the other files do not exist. You can’t link to “hidden” files and they won’t show up in a search or quick switcher.
This way when I’m at work with my WORK workspace turned on, it will be just like it’s own vault. Same goes for when I go home, I can choose my HOME workspace, or if I desire, go back to default Obsidian that shows everything.
All the pros of separate vaults, but keeping the same Obsidian setup.
Of course, the separate vaults would still be available for when you want to have different setups for different activities.
Current workaround (optional)
Right now, I don’t have any workarounds. Best I can do is merge everything together. Make two high level root folders for WORK and PERSONAL, and tag them all or give them a property. Each time I search something and know it was for work, I’d have to always include the #work as part of the search query.
Related feature requests (optional)
Here’s a post with lots of requests for the vault settings sync. I think my solution would be simpler and easier to implement.