Global Settings / Same settings, themes, and plugins across multiple vaults

Feature requests
115

New Obsidian user here who just created a couple of new vaults and immediately saw this problem.

I’m familiar with concepts of global vs specific settings. There are issues brought up by other posters about clashes with plugins and multiple devices that can complicate things.

With the current system I can easily clone the settings in one vault to another. But dealing with changes and vault-specific settings makes this intractible at scale.

I don’t know how widespread this issue is, but I would guess that for each user posting here there is a larger group that never bothers to post. I’ll add my voice to the folks who have this issue and would love a supported (and supportable) solution.

3 Likes
116

Yes, me too! I find it kind of jarring how different settings are. I’m just getting into Obsidian and learning things, and I have separate work and home vaults. And every time I discover a feature and hotkey it, I have to edit that twice. And every time I change an appearance, twice. And every time I add a mod, twice. It’s very disruptive having to do that. So instead, I do these things once and end up with two very different Obsidian experiences.

3 Likes
117

+1 for me too. I think I understand why this hasn’t been supported yet but I, for one, would find it incredibly helpful if we could sync some settings (i.e. hotkeys) at the global level, rather than at the Vault level. It’s going to take me some time to set all the hotkeys I ever want to configure so manually syncing them is time-consuming. Thanks!

2 Likes
118

Please, yes, add ths

1 Like
119

There are a few things it would be better not to copy. Here is a proposed amendment to the copy line:

    copytree(main, other, ignore=ignore_patterns('workspace*',
                                                'starred.json',
                                                'graph.json',
                                                'backlink.json',
                                                'cache'))

Also, the if other.exists() block of code needs to go. Deleting the old stuff is not necessary or desired when aiming to preserve the workspace of different vaults, as the amended copytree does.

1 Like
120

I’ve noticed some folks mentioned workaround doesn’t exist.
So here is mine that works like a charm:

  1. Get any free file sync app. e.g. FreeFileSync (desktop) , FolderSync(Android),
  2. Set sync between each vaults for hassle free all in one sync just sync \.obsidian folder.
  3. you can exclude vault specifics like \bookmarks.json , \graph.json, \workspace.json, etc
  4. run it manually or set it to run automatically

Disclaimer:

  • This is not to sync between devices but between vaults.
  • I got nothing in common with mentioned apps aside tried them out.
  • I voted for this feature long time ago.
2 Likes
121

WOuld also love this feature !

1 Like
122

Use case or problem

I have many sets of notes, for different purposes: Work General, Work Projects, Work Research, Hobbies Projects, Hobbies Research, Personal.

Tweaking settings across all is tedious as many are vault local settings. However Obsidian does have a default set for new vaults ( just don’t know where this is stored).

Proposed solution

I propose a hierarchical settings model similar to what is implement in the *Nix world:

  • Default ( /etc/default/xxx)
  • System ( /etc/xxx)
  • Local ( ~/xxx)

I understand this may or may not be possible on the architecture of the application code. But this is a fairly common overlay model used by many applications built using frameworks, and I am sure it is possible under the Electron framework.

In effect

  • Default: Obsidian Project Creators proposed settings.

Modified by package updates and/or manual editing of the skeleton file

  • System: A System (.obsidian) file that contains deviations to the Default. Stored in applications config folder.

Modified using the settings dialog, when a radio selector is activated.
In this mode the change settings become applicable on all vaults, not only the active vault.

  • Local: A (.obsidian ) file local to the vault, that has deviations to the Default/System settings.

Modified using the settings dialog, when a radio selector is deactivated.
In this mode the change settings become applicable only to the active vault.

Current workaround (optional)

Related feature requests (optional)

Related topics referenced in topis above, but no longer resolving

  • https://forum.obsidian.md/t/allow-specifying-the-obsidian-folder-location/16452
  • https://forum.obsidian.md/t/custom-default-vault-settings/6613
  • https://forum.obsidian.md/t/copy-current-vault-settings-to-new-one/36134
123

Scrolling through the many comments on this original topic (Global Settings / Same settings, themes, and plugins across multiple vaults) which prompted me to post the topic. I see a similar suggestion to what I am proposing was also made.

I reference that reply here to make this topic easier to read.

124

I don’t suppose you have links to the posts that those broken links appear in? I put them in search but only got your posts.

126

These links above were extracted from the initial posting ( Global Settings / Same settings, themes, and plugins across multiple vaults - #4 by obsequious ) , but returns this message when clicking on the link: Oops! That page doesn’t exist or is private.

127

Thanks! When I copy-pasted the addresses from your post, I saw that message. But clicking the links in the post you got them from, I see those posts were deleted and their comments merged into another thread. (I guess I had pasted them into a browser where I was logged out and can see them now because I’m a moderator.) So you’re not missing anything. I’ll add a note to that post; sorry for the inconvenience.

128

Adding another vote to this feature. I just started using Obsidian and was playing around with test vaults to get the hang of things; made a new one and all the plugins I’ve set up are gone. Very frustrating for someone trying to onboard; I can also imagine it being frustrating in the future were I to keep using Obsidian and have multiple vaults, which seems like a reasonable expectation of how to use it.

1 Like
129

I was frustrated about the same problem so I started to create a plugin to solve this. Recently my plugin Settings profiles was released. I think this could solve some of the problems mentioned in this thread. I hope you give it a try and it can solve this problem for you. I would also be happy to receive feedback or suggestions for improvement.

1 Like
130

Can you comment a little on which parts it addresses?

1 Like
131

Same question as @argentum. I read the github description but would like to know more about how it works.

Also, what’s the effect on vaults synced to mobile, since it doesn’t support the mobile app?

132

The initial post mentions 3 options to solve the problem that you need to configure your settings, styles, plugins in each vault you have. My plugin is Option 4 you can create a profile where your settings get stored and you can then load them from other vaults.

  1. You only need to download “Settings profiles” in an existing vault.
  2. Create a profile, you can select what you like to synchronize, and save the settings in it.
  3. Than you can go to an different vault download “Settings profiles” there too.
  4. Load the profile you created in the other vault and everything you selected in the profile gets loaded.

You can also create multiple profiles if you want different settings that you can easily switch between.

At the moment mobile is not tested. I marked it as not mobile capable because it accesses the documents folder and saves the profiles there. I’m not sure if this is possible without additional work.

2 Likes
133

I see that in configuring your profile you pick a location on your computer. I assume all settings from the vault get copied there. And then when you open another vault and configure the profile to that location, settings get copied from there to your vault. And I guess after that it follows the simple sync algorithm “if profile is newer copy to vault; if vault is newer, copy to profile.”

I’m pondering how that works with multiple computers, with say dropbox sync. I could point this tool at a second dropbox folder, so my profiles are always synced to the net as well. What could go wrong?

This would be best if the path could be “…/Profiles/” as relative to the vault, supposing dropbox and vaults are not at the same drive location on each machine.

But I’m vaguely worrying about overlapping syncs.

In any event, the plugin does not support relative paths, so I can’t do it.

I tried using absolute paths, the same on every computer to the profile, but the overlapping sync problem bit me, so sadly this can’t work.

134

Currently you can disable AutoSync and the settings from the profile will not be automatically loaded while the plugin is loading.

For your setup, the plugin needs many more options to be able to configure it.

135

Supporting an arbitrary number of vaults is harder than my case of supporting exactly 2 vaults. I have solved my case using the shell plugin so I can from one vault copy settings to the other vault, when i need to.