Hack to "sync" notes across windows 11 and IOS

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Hi All,

I faced problems syncing obsidian notes across my windows and apple phone. Others have summarized their issues in thread.

While I was hacking away I set up a solution that maybe works for me, and since it is something that I can live with, I thought of sharing it with the larger group.

Run this as a bat file everytime you want to use obsidian

@echo off

set cloudFolder="PATH TO YOUR NOTES ON THE ICLOUD DRIVE FOLDER"
set localFolder="PATH TO YOUR NOTES ON LOCAL"
set obsidianEXEPath=C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Local\Obsidian\Obsidian.exe
echo %cloudFolder%
echo %localFolder%
XCopy %cloudFolder% %localFolder% /E /H /C /I /y
start /W %obsidianEXEPath%
rmdir /s %cloudFolder% /q
XCopy %localFolder% %cloudFolder% /E /H /C /I /y
pause

PS: This way assumes you are not working on both the desktop and mobile app simultaneously. This also takes into account that you close obsidian after use. If the second point seems daunting, maybe one can remove the /W (wait for close) on the obsidian start command and set up a loop to run every x seconds to perform rmdir and xcopy operations.

2

Folks, after testing this for a while, faced problems with large amounts of data being deleted and backed up to one drive(obviously would have run into this sooner or later).

Therefore here is another implementation.

Requirements: Python and windows.

Problem 1: to identify only changed files and copy them from iCloud folder to local folder. and vice versa.
Solution - Enable \d option in XCopy

Problem 2: Delete local iles that have been deleted in drive while opening Obsidian in windows, delete drive files that have been deleted in local while closing Obsidian.
Solution - Use “rglob” and figure out which files (Not Folders this still has to be manual) to delete.

Here is the whole solution I am working with:

Python File:


import re
import os
import sys
import glob
from pathlib import Path

NOTES_FOLDER_NAME = "<your-notes-folder-name>"
LOCAL_FOLDER_PATH = "E:"
DRIVE_FOLDER_PATH = 'C:/Users/<your-user-name>/iCloudDrive/iCloud~md~obsidian'
LOCAL_NOTES_FOLDER_PATH = os.path.join(LOCAL_FOLDER_PATH, NOTES_FOLDER_NAME)
DRIVE_NOTES_FOLDER_PATH = os.path.join(DRIVE_FOLDER_PATH, NOTES_FOLDER_NAME)


def get_local_files():
    return [str(i) for i in list(Path(os.path.join(LOCAL_FOLDER_PATH, NOTES_FOLDER_NAME)).rglob("*"))]

def get_drive_files():
    return [str(i) for i in list(Path(os.path.join(DRIVE_FOLDER_PATH, NOTES_FOLDER_NAME)).rglob("*"))]

def remove_path_precending_note_folder(file_paths :list):
    return [re.sub(r".*"+NOTES_FOLDER_NAME, NOTES_FOLDER_NAME, i) for i in file_paths]

if __name__ == "__main__":

    local_files = remove_path_precending_note_folder(get_local_files())
    drive_files = remove_path_precending_note_folder(get_drive_files())
    if sys.argv[1] == "1":
        for i in list(set(local_files) - set(drive_files)):
            file_path = os.path.join(LOCAL_FOLDER_PATH, i)
            if Path(file_path).is_file():
                print(f"deleting {file_path}")
                os.remove(file_path)
            else:
                print(f"{file_path} is a directory")
    else:
        for i in list(set(drive_files) - set(local_files)):
            file_path = os.path.join(DRIVE_FOLDER_PATH, i)
            if Path(file_path).is_file():
                print(f"deleting {file_path}")
                os.remove(file_path)
            else:
                print(f"{file_path} is a directory")

.bat File:

@echo off

set cloudFolder="C:\Users\<your-username>\iCloudDrive\iCloud~md~obsidian\<your-notes-folder-name>"
set localFolder="E:\<your-notes-folder-name>"
set obsidianEXEPath=C:\Users\<your-user-name>\AppData\Local\Obsidian\Obsidian.exe
echo %cloudFolder%
echo %localFolder%
XCopy %cloudFolder% %localFolder% /e /h /c /i /d /y
"<python-installation-path>" "<python-file-path>" 1
pause
start /W %obsidianEXEPath%
XCopy %localFolder% %cloudFolder% /e /h /c /i /d /y
"<python-installation-path>" "<python-file-path>" 2
pause

Also I made a shortcut and pinned it to start with the target as:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c "C:\Users\<your-user-name>\Desktop\open obsidian.bat"

This way I can start Obsidian the normal way.

Hope this is helpful to somebody struggling like me.

Key Notes:

  1. Close Obsidian on mobile before working on it on the desktop.
  2. I faced issues with plugins, but when I installed them directly from mobile, they worked.

By no means is this the best solution, but for me it has been the fastest and reliable one.

1 Like
3

I had a version of this on MacOS using rsync. While the rsync portion ran fine from CRON, the latency of an iOS update sync was just too unpredictable / unreliable for my use (mac mini, MacBook, and iPad)

4

Oh, I was under the assumption that iCloud sync at least worked fine in the “Apple Ecosystem” guess I was wrong.

In windows, I have “Always keep this on device” on for the notes folder. While I did face sync delay once, it has been working pretty flawlessly till now. :crossed_fingers: