Would love for this to be created ![]()
I’d even be happy with a solution like Notepad++ where you can configure “global override” settings and then toggle them on or off.
I think my ideal form would be the ability to make styles (akin to OS themes) which you could select as a preset when making a project, AND for any supported settings you could select “make this setting match Y preset” and then select the preset you want to match.
This could even take the form of copying from an existing vault, so it would be as simple as having Obsidian copy over the settings for you.
Have you tried using “Symbolic Link”???
I don’t know if someone already mentioned it or not (there are lot of replies to this thread!!!) so I am just writing down what seems to be working for me (don’t know if it will break in the future)
$ pwd
/c/Users/MyName/Documents/NewVault
$ ln -s ~/Documents/MyPrimaryVault/.obsidian
Basically,
- I went to the folder where I want my new vault
- I made a symbolic link to the
.obsidianfolder in my primary vault
Let me know if it works for you.
You can do it, but I suggest checking the warnings in the help docs. Make sure to keep good backups:
git indeed. I ended up created a template vault and use git to create and manage new vaults.
The problem for me remains in porting updates from the template to existing vaults—I still have to do this by hand.
It seems we have a number of almost solutions and nothing that quite does it simply and effectively.
Even so, I think I’d still make use of git for my vaults and modules, if only for the version control and backup solution it offers.
Thank you so much, I will keep it in mind, and if I run into any issues, I will mention it to this thread.
you can maybe use symbolic links, an operating software & file storage feature, for this
Has this worked for others ?
I would love this.
Sure, I agree that obviously not everyone scopes to project level (as said somewhere probably halfway up the thread by a mod).
But the obvious solution is a toggle. That way, a new vault can have a default (seems easiest to default to global setting changes – especially since it’s easier to change a new vault from “the same way you set up the last one” than “start from scratch and have to change everything no matter whether you’re fully customizing or keeping things”; most use cases are going to overlap at least a little bit) but it can be turned off.
If someone doesn’t want the same hotkeys, or the same font or theme or core plugins (…least likely IMO), they don’t have to have them, but having the option would make things a lot easier than adding yet another plugin or digging around in File Explorer and potentially losing things.
And/or, the team could give instructions/a copy button within Settings – somewhat like the copy button on the “Style Settings” (and a number of other) plugin(s), so you can easily export the config from directly in the vault, create a new one, and hit import.
Even if some things had to be separated out or weren’t possible to make seamless this way – obviously plugins aren’t going to copy in a one-and-done type setup – and even if the default wasn’t what you wanted, it’d still feel thoughtful and user-customized, which is much better than having to start from a blank page.
It works! I used junctions to set it up.
There’s an easy tool for creating symlinks and junctions directly from the right-click menu in File Explorer. It’s called Link Shell Extension. Here’s a short video on how to install it:
Here’s how to sync vault1/.obsidian with vault2:
- Delete or move the settings folder in
vault2:vault2/.obsidian. - Right-click on
vault1/.obsidianand select Pick Link Source. - Right-click on the
vault2folder (or inside it) and select Drop As > Junction. That’s it!
The Settings Profiles plugin can also sync settings between vaults and it can back up settings to any location, inside or outside the vault.
I think it would be cool if Obsidian allowed you to pick a specific folder to store your settings. You could then configure different vaults to use that same location.
It’s been 3 years, so I’ve attempted to resolve this on my own by creating a CLI that hardlinks files in the .obsidian directory to “Vault Templates” defined by you. pip install obsidian-cli
Source code: GitHub - Bip901/obsidian-cli: Command line utility to interact with Obsidian, providing much needed features.
- 1 for this request
+1 for this request.
+1 too
3 posts were split to a new topic: A non-standard, symlink-based Obsidian architecture on macOS

