Import root documents folder - Am I doing this right?

[madmax73]

Things I have tried

What I’m trying to do

I’m new to Obsidian and trying to understand how to best use vaults. I use the PARA method for organising my files and so have markdown files spread around in hundreds of folders combined with other related files e.g. pdf’s, images, spreadsheets etc.

I don’t want to have to create a new folder and move all my markdown files there, I want them to stay in their relevant folders. I see that I can import my entire PARA root folder as a vault and then see all the files and folders in the navigation pane. Is this the best way to use Obsidian without having to move all markdown files into a separate file hierarchy?

Any advice would be super helpful, thank you!

[koala]

Depends on how big the PARA folder is. It’s not recommended to use the root directory as vault, but yours is a different case. I’d try it out and see whether it’s fast enough.

[madmax73]

Its 55 GB with 46k files. However navigating the tree is fast and I don’t notice any speed issues. Is the only downside to doing it this way performance?

[koala]

The only downside could be performance, but I think in the past we did improvements for these kinds of situations, so it shouldn’t slow down that much.
Thinks like graph view could become laggy if you link all the attachments and show them, though.

[koala]

I think @ryanjamurphy also has his notes together with the other files in DevonThink, so it should work.

[ryanjamurphy]

I don’t have 55gb, heh. I imagine that involves some video, @madmax73? I think the two key factors in performance are the number of files and the amount of text in the markdown files. So if that 55gb included a lot of media, it probably won’t influence performance at all.