[Feature] Accessing Other Storages for Obsidian Vault

[zakee]

Platform

iOS
Android

Obsidian Mobile version: v1.4.1

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I want to work with two different vaults side by side. So, I thought of using the facility xiaomi phone has ==dual apps==.

Second App was created, but I am not able to create a vault from my internal storage and it is showing the following error.

After bit of a research. I found that dual apps or the second app storage location is different. And I was able to list the files and folders of second storage using termux in the directory /storage/emulated/999.

Finally, I tried to locate the dual apps storage by choosing Open Folder as a Vault but I was not able to find it.

Some apps allow us to choose location from external sources such as termux storage location, google drive…

But it seems to be obsidian is only able to check internal storage.

Is it possible to make obsidian can access other storage. May be if possible in more advanced options like ftp, sftp, webdav…

I think that this is aligning with this plugin idea of mine.

Mega Cloud Storage for Obsidian

I like using obsidian and managing my Media in it. But, the problem is Storage can run out. As Mega Cloud Storage has Zero Knowledge Encryption (No Worries in Privacy) and Free 20 GB Storage. I think it would be great if there is a way to store and edit obsidian files, directly for mega cloud storage. And don’t need to run out of my local storage. And no worries for Privacy and Security. Mega is developer friendly and also have a cli version as Mega CMD. So, I think this is possible through a …

However, The minimum goal of this feature request is to access the dual apps storage for the second vault.

Orelse, Any Option to work with both vaults side by side just using the primary app.

Even Though, I made this request as a Mobile User. I think this feature will help anyone.

Example: I have a two Vaults One For Business and One For Education. And I want to refer my Education Notes to write my Business Plan or Something Related to Business. Then What I will need to do now is exit from Business Vault Go to Education Vault and come back to Business Vault. Some Times if the reference is too big. I will need to use another note taking app temporarily, until the work is done.

[WhiteNoise]

it’s not possible. There is an explanation about this in the docs and multiple posts in the forum about it.

[zakee]

Can you share me the link of one of them.

[WhiteNoise]

Full File System Access For The iOS App (Open Existing Vault/Folder)

Use case or problem I am using Obsidian on macOS, Linux and Android - and today I installed it on my iPad as well. On iOS the only place where I can store my Vault is the “Obsidian” folder. I am aware that iOS has restrictions in the way apps can use the file system. But some apps allow creating and editing files outside of their “own” folder. My use case: I want to be able to freely interact with the Obsidian markdown files from other apps. That would be best possible if I could store the vaul…

The same goes for android.

[zakee]

Thanks, for this. I know IOS has its own restriction. But I am using android. I think there will be more flexibility in this case for Android compared to ios.

[WhiteNoise]

Android has a shared location and that’s where Obsidian puts the vault. If you can point other apps to the shared location, good. Obsidian can’t access other apps data.

[zakee]

That’s the problem. When I try to put the second app obsidian vault from shared location. I get that error. That’s why I think if there is possibility to access /storage/emulated/999, which is the location of dual apps. I can create the folder.

I read this article.

Sync your notes across devices - Obsidian Help

This Article seems to be much tailored to IOS. And also note, My Basic Requirement is not syncing but to access the device storage /storage/emulated/999 for dual apps.

Orelse, As I mentioned earlier

Any Option to work with both vaults side by side just using the primary app.

[smartguy1196]

No, actually. Android just seems less restrictive, but internally without rooting or a custom build, it’s generally not possible on mobile platforms.

There’s 2 issues that Android poses to any kind of file share:

1. user permissions (file read,write,etc) on Android are weird, especially for a Linux system.
   • their user permissions (with exception of the root user) are on a per-app basis and not on a per-user basis
2. Google likes to containerize everything if possible (it’s currently the most secure OS design and is why Chrome OS is so extremely container-centric)
   • one such containerization is the ability to run a single android app under different android profiles like what you get with xaomi
     • the unrecognized consequence of this is that the individual instances of these dual-apps are treated like 2 entirely separate apps with their own read-write permissions

[smartguy1196]

Now the reason why I say generally, is because implementations of Android do allow this kind of behavior, but do it in a controlled fashion.

Chrome OS is an example. The files stored on the Android container can be shared with the Linux container and the Chrome OS host (which is Gentoo linux) via the FUSE file system.