Hi
I am a recent excalidraw user and I just want to share a recent discovery that might save you a decent chunk of remote vault storage, especially if you are a heavy user of escalidraw. I personally have been using excalidraw for about a month.
I check my remote storage every now and then and for a long while my remote vault has been stable at around 700-800 MB, so imagine my suprise when I checked it two days ago and saw that it now takes up 1.6 GB of storage.
Obsidian Sync saves a complete copy of a file to its version history every few seconds you’re actively editing. If you’re working on a large excalidraw file (say, 500kb), even simple edits like moving a few boxes around for 60 seconds can create multiple new versions. This can easily add 3-5 MB to your remote vault from just 60 seconds of editing.
On top of that, with the Sync Plus plan that I use, these versions are stored for 12 months (1 months with Standard plan), so if you are a heavy excalidraw user, it will end up taking a decent chunk of your storage.
I have approximately 40 of these drawings, some less some more so im sure you can imagine how much storage it will add over time.
My point with this post is not to criticize on excalidraw or Sync (altho more control/insight over your remote vault would be welcomed (which is apperiently coming)), they are fantastic tools, but I want to give a heads-up to help you manage your storage (especially if you only have the 1 GB plan) and I have two workflows that can help with this.
First option, if you plan to work on some drawing over the next while, turn off/pause Sync, or add the excalidraw folder to the excluded list, do your thing and once you are done, just turn on Sync again and it will only send the file to the server once.
The second option, which I prefer and will be using myself (because I know I will forget to turn sync on/off), is to do the all drawings on a different vault that is not connected to the remote vault, and once you are finished with the file, just copy the file to the main vault, and it will only send it once.
As a final note, I know Im writing about excalidraw in this particular post but the ghist of it will apply for every other plugin aswell.
Thats all. Ciao.