What I’m trying to do
I have been using obsidian for almost a year now. Today I opened the app as usual and all my files were lost, everywhere.
Things I have tried
I read a lot on this subject and nothing seems to fit my situation. None of the solutions worked for me. I can’t find my files anywhere. Not on OneDrive, not in the “recycling bin” of my computer, there are no snapshots even though I used the app 2 days ago and the limit is set at 7 days, and the file %APPDATA%\Obsidian\ does not exist anywhere.
I don’t have Obsidian sync or anything and I am unsure if my files were even uploaded to OneDrive, but they should be in the snapshots, right? It is like all traces of a year-long project have suddenly disappeared. It’s horrible. Could someone please help?
This sounds terrible, but we need more info.
You mention OneDrive—are you using OneDrive to store your vault? Or perhaps you’re using it to back up your entire Documents folder (as is now the default on most Windows systems). In that case I would go online first to https://onedrive.live.com and see if you find the data there. If you do, then it might just be a general OneDrive sync issue which can usually be solved by logging out & back in to OneDrive app.
If you aren’t using OneDrive then I suggest trying an app like Everything (voidtools, free) to scour your entire disk for the vault.
I assume you don’t do any sort of general backup of your computer? (you should start doing that btw… I recommend something like Backblaze if you don’t have a personal NAS)
Thank you for your answer.
Yes, Onedrive should be part of my laptop’s default backup system. I already tried looking for my files on this cloud, but it seems there has been an issue with it for a while as it started a whole backing up of my computer once I logged in… Now I’m having all kinds of warnings concerning storage. So I’m guessing, my computer was supposed to be uploaded on this cloud, but for some reason it wasn’t.
Something else that I find really weird is the presence of previously deleted obsidian files on my local “recycling bin” that I recovered out of curiosity, and that are now being uploaded on the OneDrive. It proves that my OneDrive was not working properly, but also shows that deleted files go to the local disk’s bin.
In any case, Obsidian must have backed up on my local disk as I could see deleted files. Also what about the “snapshots” that Obsidian is supposed to take? Why don’t I have any?
Something else, I just ran “Disk Drill” on my computer and still no trace of anything related to Obsidian. How can this be? It’s like my files never existed. Do you have an idea of the file name I should be looking for (in case I haven’t been searching the right way).
Thank you so much for the help
Ugh sounds like a bit of a mess. I see this all the time—people don’t typically check on or question whether their cloud sync/backup apps are working properly (these apps really ought to be noisier in my opinion!) We assume all is fine, until the day that “something” happens and we find out it wasn’t.
Sorry this happened but hopefully you’ll be able to find the files somewhere. They don’t just go poof.
The file names could literally be anything, starting from the very top of your vault (vault name, which you chose at the time of creation). Within each Obsidian vault structure, there’s a hidden .obsidian directory that contains configuration data used by the app and any installed plugins. Some file names that should be present in every Obsidian vault are:
app.json
appearance.json
core-plugins.json
workspace.json
So, I would scour my disk (using Everything as I mentioned above) for those filenames.