How to start syncing plugin settings without messing them up

Help
1

What I’m trying to do

I use obsidian sync, but I’ve never before synced plugins and their settings. I now realize that I can turn on the “Active community plugin list” and “Installed community plugins” to sync the plugins and their settings within sync settings, and I would like to do this. However, I want the the plugin settings I use on my mac to overwrite the plugin settings I use on my iPhone, and not visa versa, which would be a real problem. I realize I could probably back up those plugin settings on my Mac in case things go wrong and then bring them back, but I’m not super tech savvy and that could be a huge time sink, so I’d like to know ahead of time whether my Mac plugin settings will overwrite my iPhone settings (and iPad settings) or visa versa.

Things I have tried

I haven’t tried anything yet out of fear that I’ll lose my current plugin settings on my Mac.

2

Making a quick backup for peace of mind is easy: make a copy of the VAULT-NAME/.obsidian/ folder (this includes app settings, themes, community plugins and their settings, etc.).

The help docs are here:

I’m a Sync user and do sync community plugins between two desktops, but don’t sync them between iPad and phone. I use Obsidian differently on desktop vs. tablet vs. phone, and want community plugins to be separate for those devices.

I didn’t have an issue when setting up community plugins syncing from my “main” desktop to the second one when I did that. That said, a backup of .obsidian takes a few seconds in the Finder.