Is obsidian safe in terms of data losses?

[Sal112358]

Hi guys! I’m new to Obsidian and I really like it so far, but today I’ve experienced something strange.

I was using Obsidian and suddendly needed to do something else for about 30 mins; when I came back to my desk and turned on my pc (which went on standby mode in the meantime), one note I had opened got the text wiped out of it. I was able to restore the file through file recovery feature fortunately.

I’ve got 3 questions:

1. Where exactly are the snapshots saved? I went in the %APPDATA%\Obsidian\ directory since this page told me it was there, but couldn’t understand which folder contained the snapshots (probably %APPDATA%\Obsidian\IndexedDB but I’m not sure).
2. I don’t have many notes now since I started using Obsidian recently, but if I had something like thousands of notes, would it be okay to set the history length parameter of the snapshots to (let’s say) 2 years, or would it take too much storage in my pc (More than 10-15 gigs)?
3. Probably the most important question. If I were to have an incredible amount of notes, hence not being able to review them regularly, can I trust Obsidian that they will not be deleted randomly like the one I talked about earlier (I know it also depends on other factors, like my pc and other stuff, but I’m saying it more in terms of software stability than physical stability)?

Hope I was able to explain thoroughly the problems and doubts I have. Thanks for your attention and I’m looking forward to your reply!

[WhiteNoise]

@Sal112358

I was using Obsidian and suddendly needed to do something else for about 30 mins; when I came back to my desk and turned on my pc (which went on standby mode in the meantime), one note I had opened got the text wiped out of it.

You PC likely crashed.

If you have important documents, it is a good practice that you have a backup solution alongside Obsidian and not rely just on File Recovery plugin.

[Sal112358]

Thanks for the answer! What do you suggest to use to back an entire vault up like every 3 hours (that’s external to Obsidian obviously)?

Also, do you perhaps know the asnwers to the other questions? Thanks either way.

[WhiteNoise]

@Sal112358

• Where exactly are the snapshots saved? I went in the %APPDATA%\Obsidian\ directory since this page told me it was there, but couldn’t understand which folder contained the snapshots (probably %APPDATA%\Obsidian\IndexedDB but I’m not sure).
• I don’t have many notes now since I started using Obsidian recently, but if I had something like thousands of notes, would it be okay to set the history length parameter of the snapshots to (let’s say) 2 years, or would it take too much storage in my pc (More than 10-15 gigs)?
• Probably the most important question. If I were to have an incredible amount of notes, hence not being able to review them regularly, can I trust Obsidian that they will not be deleted randomly like the one I talked about earlier (I know it also depends on other factors, like my pc and other stuff, but I’m saying it more in terms of software stability than physical stability)?

1. Yes they are in IndexedDB. They are not easily accessible outside Obsidian if you don’t know what you are doing.
2. It depends on how many files you have, how often you edit them. Text files are not very though.
3. Again, I would not rely on Obsidian File Recovery as a long term backup solution. It was implemented as an emergency tool.

[Sal112358]

Thank you very much! You’ve been immensely helpful, hope the rest of your day goes well!