Hello team,
Issue: Sometimes out of nowhere, my note file’s content is completely lost and changed to the content of another note file. Google Drive version history sometimes help to recover the correct content, sometimes does not help because all versions have the content of another unrelated note file.
Steps to reproduce
I’m not sure how to reproduce this issue in a sandbox vault, since it happens randomly and quite rare.
Description:
- My Vault is about 12 GB with 5500 files, stored in a Google Drive folder which is set to “Make available offline”, so that I can always access the note files immediately on my macOS Obsidian desktop app
- Sometimes when I open an arbitrary note file A in Obsidian, I’m very surprised to find that its entire content has been changed to be identical to the content of another note file B. Meaning I have lost all the content of the file A since the last time I modified.
- In Obsidian I can search and open both files A and B. Their content are identical, the only difference is the file name (one is A and another is B).
- Revealing the files in Finder in the Google Drive folder shows that both files are still visible and selectable.
- There seems to be no correlation or connection between the two files A and B. Both of them can be any arbitrary note files.
- In Finder, right-clicking on file A and selecting “Manage versions” (Google Drive quick action) will open a folder in Finder, the path is something like “Google Drive > .file-revisions-by-id > 35071”. In this folder I see a list of versioned files for the file name A (e.g. 1_A, 2_A, 3_A, etc.). Sometimes I can find the correct content of A in one of these files. Sometimes I cannot, meaning the content of all of them is file B’s content (meaning I cannot recover A’s content at all). And sometimes there are some files with the name of file B mixed in the list, e.g. 1_A, 2_A, 3_A, 4_B, 5_B.
- In Finder, right-clicking on file B and selecting “Manage versions” (Google Drive quick action) will open the same folder above. So looks like Google Drive’s version history of the two files are mixed up.
- When I go to the Google Drive website and search for the name of file A or file B, they do not show up in the search results. In some cases they show up but I guess it’s probably because I have made some edits and saved them.
- Frequency: During my last 3 years of using Obsidian with this setup, I had this same issue for about 4 times. The symptoms are all similar to each other.
- Severity: High for me, some note files have really big content that I have accummulated after years of working, and this might mean losing them completely. Unless I’m lucky with the Google Drive version history (which is not guaranteed as I see).
Environment and setup:
- Macbook Pro Apple M1, macOS Sequoia 15.5 (I had the same issue occasionally with several older macOS versions as well)
- Obsidian 1.8.10 (Installer 1.5.11) (I had the same issue occasionally with several older Obsidian versions as well)
- Core plugins:
- Backlinks
- Bookmarks
- Canvas
- Command palette
- Daily notes
- File recovery
- Files
- Format converter
- Graph view
- Note composer
- Outgoing links
- Outline
- Page preview
- Properties view
- Quick switcher
- Search
- Tags view
- Templates
- Word count
- Community plugins:
- Advanced Tables 0.21.0 by Tony Grosinger
- Templater 2.3.3 by SilentVoid
Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [N]
Expected result
I expect this issue to never happen and I never lose any data.
Actual result
I lost the contents of some of my notes.
Environment
SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.8.10
Installer version: v1.5.11
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 24.5.0: Tue Apr 22 19:48:46 PDT 2025; root:xnu-11417.121.6~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T8103 24.5.0
Login status: not logged in
Language: en
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: dark
Community theme: Night Owl v0.0.0
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 3
Plugins enabled: 2
1: Templater v2.3.3
2: Advanced Tables v0.21.0
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Custom theme and snippets: for cosmetic issues, please first try updating your theme and disabling your snippets. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community theme and snippets.
Community plugins: for bugs, please first try updating all your plugins to latest. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community plugins.
Additional information
Screenshot of the Finder folder which has the Google Drive version history files: (I tried to paste a Google Drive link here but was rejected upon creating the topic)
Let me know if you need any additional information. Many thanks for creating the great Obsidian software!