Location of Obsidian indexedDB on Mobile

Help
1

First, search the help docs and this forum. Maybe your question has been answered! The debugging steps can help, too. Still stuck? Delete this line and proceed.

What I’m trying to do

I am trying to find the location of Obsidian indexedDB on mobile (Android) to retrieve snapshot files past the File Recovery’s History Length.

Things I have tried

I have tried accessing the Obsidian Android data folder, to no avail.

I have tried looking at my Mac’s Appdata folder, successfully finding the indexedDB. However, I wasn’t able to find similar posts for indexedDB on Android.

2

The Help section about this unfortunately only lists locations for desktop OSes. You could post an issue about that on the Help’s GitHub (linked near the bottom of the homepage).

In the meantime, you could try researching where Capacitor (the mobile framework Obsidian uses) stores its IndexedDB on Android.

3

The file history snapshots are deleted from the IndexedDB when they expire.
So they won’t be in there.

1 Like
6

I would still like to know the indexedDB location on mobile, for documentation sake.

7

It’s stored in a private area for the app and it’s not accessible as a simple file outside of it (like it is on desktop). This is true for both iOS and Android.

8

I see, it must be in the root for Android. Do you know the directory?

9

It’s not accessible by anything, except the Obsidian app.
There is NO way you can access it.

And it depends on the device manufacturer, then android version, and probably some more factors.

10

I found the folder in /data/data. I think I can obtain it using a debuggable version of Obsidian. Do you have one? I tested on my Mac, and Obsidian seems to store snapshots past the expiration date.

11

Okay, I think there is another way. I am assuming Obsidian makes temp files when saving the .md files, is there any documentation on these temp files?

12

There is no debugabble version of Obsidian.
Obsidian doesn’t make temporary files.

You can debug mobile Obsidian (and access the contents of indexeddb) by connecting your phone to a computer and using chrome remote debugging functionality.

13

I appreciate your help. I did end up recovering the data because it does seem that Obsidian makes some sort of temp file. I used “photo rec” to scan my dedicated USB for Obsidian notes, which gave me back a few TXT files, one of which was the lost documents. The tutorial is here: microsoft word - Is there any way to restore/recover the previous version of a file that was saved over? - Super User

I think I lost the document due to a commonly occurring error, which is that taking the USB out of the phone right after writing on a .md note erases all of its contents. Hopefully, it is fixed soon.

Perhaps now, the documentation should add the Chrome remote debugging alongside the Mac, Windows, and Linux IndexedDB pathways, it worked very well. May I add it if y’all are too busy? I know how hectic development can get.

Again, thank you very much!

14

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