Found no solutions using search terms similar to …
multiple users
common vault
same pc
What I’m trying to do
Can multiple users on a single PC share a common vault?
Does each user need to separately install Obsidian?
I’m thinking of creating a common vault on a shared subdirectory off the C:/ drive, that each user of the PC can access via their individual Microsoft logins, but it seems the Obsidian instance I installed is available just for my login. If I reinstall obsidian for each (user), will they each be able to access the common vault from C:/ drive.?
In other words, what is the best way to have multiple users on the same PC use Obsidian and share notes? I presume each user (family member) will have their own vault that is backed up to their respective Onedrive accounts as I am doing because that seems to work for my vault.
I’m also interested in backing up and syncing the common family vault if I can get that to work, but that is a separate issue.
Obsidian Community - I’m trying to figure out how to synchronize a vault from a different Windows user profile on the same (or different) windows PC.
From my own Windows profile, I want to access a family vault maintained on the family profile of my various Windows computers. The family vault is synchronized to OneDrive space also tied to family profile, so I can access it from our family desktop and laptops, but ONLY by logging into the same family profile from each PC. I’d like the convenience of accessing the same family vault from within my own user profile, where I of course maintain my personal vault that is also synced to my personal Onedrive space.
Because of the user profile login issue, separate family profile and personal profile with different logins, I’m stuck having logout and back into each profile to access each vault.
I’m thinking about using a different synchronization method, like SyncThing to “automatically” copy/sync the family vault to a new folder/vault on my laptop. Any thoughts on this method or a better way would be appreciated.
I am not sure I understand correctly: Do you wish to have separate users to collaborate and be visible as distinct profiles in Obsidian? This is currently not possible but I think collaboration is something they have planned.
Or do you just wish to have one giant vault for everybody to use?
Then you can simply have it residing on a drive accessible to all. I am not using Onedrive so I am not sure about the limitations.
I have a family vault on the Windows family profile - that everyone with that profile password uses. Its main location is the family desktop. That vault is synced to Onedrive. That allows me to setup a separate windows family profile on my laptop and sync the vault down from Onedrive to that laptop profile. My family members and I can access that family vault on our respective laptops by logging into our local family profile and seeing the synced family vault from OneDrive.
For convenience access to all my local profile data, I’d like to access that family vault directly from my own personal windows profile.
I’m thinking of using SyncThing (or similar) as a second synchronization method to get the family vault in the family profile, into my personal windows profile.
Why don’t you set up the vault for every family member individually and sync it with the same OneDrive vault?
This would eat up additional harddrive space, yes. But this is mostly not a problem these days.
You would gain the possibility to access the vault from every account and still have it all synced to the same OneDrive.
If your scenario is such that only one account on the same machine is being used at the same time, you could do this even easier: Put the vault in a place all accounts have access to.
You can do that either by giving access through permissions to all other users and leave it where it is. Or you can put it on a separate drive and everybody accesses it from there.
Hmmm - from what I can tell OneDrive only syncs to a single Windows profile at a time. So each family member can only sync to their respective OneDrive vault, not to a common vault. I will re-confirm that restriction later as I need to run some errands.
If confirmed, I suppose a different cloud backup service like DropBox might not have that restriction, but I’m already paying for OneDrive.
PS. If I had a NAS drive, putting the family vault on a shared folder there could be a solution … that might be worth the investment.
I can totally recommend having a server. I am running one with OpenMediaVault 6 and it rocks. But as long as you don’t have it, it’s no use.
If OneDrive is so restrictive - which does not surprise me with it being a Microsoft product - you can switch to ResilioSync or SyncThing.
I tried both but had corrupted external SD cards on my Android devices with Syncthing. With Resilio, I have no trouble at all.