Finding and Verifying the Obsidian Vault to Move it to Dropbox

Resolved help
#1

My problem is that I want to have an Obsidian Vault in Dropbox. I saw a tutorial that said I just need to move the Vault to Dropbox, but I could not locate the Vault. I would like to know howto locate it in clear, step-by-step directions that even I can understand. When I open Obsidian, there is a “Help” button to click on, but then there does not seem to be a “Search” window to search for solutions, unless I am missing something. I tried to find the solution before posting here, that is why I am being so wordy.

#2

When in Obsidian, on the bottom right there should be 3 icons. The third from the bottom is the icon of a safe (or a vault). Click it and in the window that opens you can see the name and the path of your vault.

#3

You can also right-click a file in the file explorer and select “Reveal in folder” (or similar—I forget the exact command title). This will take you to the file in the file system outside of Obsidian. From there it should be pretty easy to identify the root of the vault!

Edit: To be clear, in File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (macOS), your vault is simply the folder you selected when you first created it. I.e., a Vault is nothing more than a folder and its subfolders. You’re not looking for anything marked “Obsidian,” “Vault,” or similar. The contents of the folder you’re looking for will be identical to what you see in Obsidian.

#4

Thanks a_wue and ryanjamurphy. I see 3 icons on the bottom left (not the right) of my Obsidian window. The Vault icon is on the top and does reveal the folder path when I click on it. I am on a Mac, so thank you for the Mac-specific instructions.

“Edit: To be clear…” Very helpful. Thanks.

1 Like
#5

I’ve got some *.md files in a new directory ~/Dropbox/technotes. How do it incorporate that in an existing Obsidian instance whose one volume at the moment is “ideaShop” in ~/Dropbox/ideaShop?

#6

Sorry for the delayed reply. For future reference, replying to something in #resolved-help might get less attention than just starting a new thread!

It depends on what you want. Ultimately you will need to include both folders in the same root folder if you want to see them in the same vault. So I would:

  • Create a new folder named e.g., “All of my notes”
  • Drag and drop the technotes and ideaShop folders into that folder
  • Drag and drop the hidden .obsidian folder from one of the previous vaults into the root of the new “All of my notes” folder. Or, start fresh by going into the Obsidian vault picker and creating a new vault, then select the “All of my notes” folder.