Hello, I’m a relatively new Obsidian user, and a college student who wants to use it to organize his notes for easier perusal. The big issue is iOS/iPadOS. I use an app called noteful, cause it doesn’t have a lot of bloat. Handwriting notes is somewhat faster and makes it easier to memorize, and retranscribing them to markdown by hand would be extremely time consuming. The issue is that Noteful only auto backs up to a google drive folder that it creates, so the Google Drive Sync plugin doesn’t work, as you can’t choose the folder it attaches to.
The iOS sandboxing means I can’t auto backup my saves locally, and while I do have access to a laptop, in order to use it as a vault that I can Obsidian Sync with, the laptop needs to always be on in order for it to function properly, which I can’t do because of privacy/security concerns.
While digging around, I saw a Dropbox workflow that apparently works on iOS, so I’m wondering if there’s anyway to potentially implement something similar for some level of auto-sync between Noteful, Google Drive, and Obsidian, without having to use another device as a bridge. (It only needs to be one way, if that helps.) Any help would be appreciated!
I get the challenge — iOS sandboxing makes it tricky to auto-sync handwritten notes without a constantly-on computer. One possible approach is using cloud services like Dropbox or iCloud as an intermediary. By creating a dedicated folder for your notes and using an iOS Shortcut (like the one you mentioned), you can effectively move files from Noteful into a folder that Obsidian can read. Even if it’s not fully automatic, running the shortcut once or twice a day can keep your vault up to date without needing another always-on device.
Another option is to explore note-taking apps that natively export to markdown or integrate more smoothly with Obsidian. Some apps allow handwriting and export to a cloud-synced markdown folder, which could save you a lot of time retranscribing. The key is finding a workflow where the app’s export folder can be accessed by Obsidian, either via Shortcuts, Dropbox, or iCloud Drive. Once that bridge is set up, you can maintain your handwritten workflow while keeping your Obsidian vault organized.
Yeah, it’s a real pain. Ik there’s a definite workflow for dropbox, but I’m hoping there’s a similar one that could do the job for Google drive. My worry is that if it’s copying the files rather than pulling straight from the folder, it’ll create tons of copies instead of overwriting the old ones.
Honestly I’ve been debating buying a Raspberry Pi to act as a dedicated bridge device, but it feels like I’m running into the Sunk Cost Fallacy at this point.