Meta Post - Syncing between Devices

verma · 2021-08-04T01:46:34.339Z

For those who do not want use to any cloud service and want to do everything offline, I have used FolderSync in my android phone and FTP server FileZilla in my Windows PC to sync my vaults between PC and mobile. It works well.

AND · 2021-08-07T10:33:31.919Z

Ahh me too. If only I could check if their sync does only what it is advertised to do.

BTW it’s best for that home server ‘cloud’ to not have Obsidian running, since Obsidian locks files and then they are not synced until the program is closed.

AND · 2021-08-07T10:33:43.706Z

How does it handle versioning?

darth_obsidious · 2021-08-07T14:35:20.729Z

BTW it’s best for that home server ‘cloud’ to not have Obsidian running, since Obsidian locks files and then they are not synced until the program is closed.

Oh in that case you can have Syncthing running and syncing the files without obsidian on the machine at all. It would just store the files.

Then version those with git and you’re gtg

AND · 2021-08-07T19:49:43.745Z

Yep. Syncthing also does versioning, one can use that too (if you wanna keep everything offline).

verma · 2021-08-08T01:34:01.549Z

I have no idea how git works so not sure how to answer you
I have not seen any file conflicts so far.

praveen6 · 2021-09-03T22:21:48.022Z

Is the price for the official Sync service offered here per vault or for any number of our own vaults ?

Also, are there any vault size limitations for the sync ?

CawlinTeffid · 2021-09-04T01:35:55.570Z

I think you get 5 vaults, each limited to 4 GB (including old versions of files), but I can’t find where I saw that info. It should be on the page you linked to or one linked from it, but I don’t see it (I also check Help and the pricing page). It might be on one of the pages after you start the buying process? It should definitely be easier to find.

edns100 · 2021-09-04T09:14:45.950Z

I think this is the page you are referring to: Obsidian Sync

cc: @praveen6

CawlinTeffid · 2021-09-04T09:22:34.435Z

Yes! Thank you! I looked at that page, and even the FAQ section, but apparently my eyes had worn out by the time I got that far down.

VladiMir777 · 2021-10-26T08:18:37.856Z

Eleanor, thank you for this comprehensive post!

Is there a way to see how much of Obsidian Sync storage have been used? Feels kind of nervous having a limit of 10 Gb and not seeing how much is left.

EleanorKonik · 2021-11-05T20:56:22.736Z

VladiMir777:

Is there a way to see how much of Obsidian Sync storage have been used? Feels kind of nervous having a limit of 10 Gb and not seeing how much is left.

It should be pretty straightforward to get a sense of it by using your operating system to tell you how much space the vault is taking up on disc, but if you need something more granular maybe file a feature request.

Dor · 2021-11-05T21:18:18.410Z

EleanorKonik:

It should be pretty straightforward to get a sense of it by using your operating system to tell you how much space the vault is taking up on disc, but if you need something more granular maybe file a feature request.

a) True
b) A FR seems like a good idea. For those using a lot of space, an indication of how close they are to approaching the limit could be reassuring.

ahmetasabanci · 2021-11-28T10:58:16.347Z

Just wanted to write down an issue I faced and how I solved it in case anyone in the future experiences the same.

I’m using iCloud sync between my macOS and iOS devices and even though it was working fine at first, somewhere along the line iCloud started having trouble with syncing Obsidian folder and files. I’m not really sure what caused it (maybe uninstalling and reinstalling on my phone caused some weird bug) but everything on iCloud was syncing without a problem except Obsidian folder.

If you ever have an issue like this, the solution is updating your Obsidian installer on your desktop. I tried all kinds of troubleshooting for iCloud without any luck but downloading latest Obsidian installer from the website and updating the Obsidian and the installer solved all the issues and now sync works instantaneously.

fyears · 2021-12-16T06:30:21.466Z

Hi, I developed a new unofficial sync plugin remotely-save that allows users to sync their notes between their Obsidian (iOS version included) and third party services (currently S3, Dropbox, webdav). The plugin is still in beta, but anyone is welcome to give it a try. More information is here: New plugin: remotely-save

foreman · 2021-12-28T04:34:27.265Z

Does anyone know if you can continue using icloud sync BUT, like i have, on a mac use nextcloud sync client to sync the vault folder specifically to nextcloud? Would this technically be me having multiple sync clients even if I am using only icloud for my obsidian folder across devices (1 mac, 1 ipad, 1 iphone)?

VeroVero · 2021-12-30T23:45:35.305Z

Adding a sync option I’m using: mega.nz

It’s a New Zealand based cloud service that gives 20GB of storage to a free user, and the files are encrypted while they’re on their servers. I only have experience with their web, Windows and Android apps.

My use case is that I mostly use my vault on Windows and sometimes on Android when I’m on the move or don’t want to get up. I also used to sync between two laptops (home and work), which went really smoothly using the MEGASync Windows app on both.

On the Windows laptop, I have the MEGASync app always on and it uploads all my changes to the cloud as they happen.

The Android MEGA app doesn’t do the sync automatically, you have to manually trigger it - so I’d do a download before leaving, and upload my changes later.
A warning though - there’s been a recent change in Google storage access requirements so you can’t upload the whole folder at once anymore, it needs to be done file by file… but the Mega support said they’re working on a fix (as of today, said to be back very soon), so it’s hopefully only temporary. The download still works for the whole folder.
That’s also why you can only save the vault folder under the default download location for your phone on Android 11, unless you have an SD card.

Specific settings:

you can enable File Versioning in your settings on the mega.nz website, under File Management, in the desktop app settings, General tab → File versions, or on the Android app in Settings → Storage → File Management
to sync files and folders starting with a dot, like “.obsidian”, open the settings on the desktop app, go to Folders tab → Excluded file and folder names, and delete “.*” that they put in by default
to add your vault into MEGA cloud and keep it synchronized, go to Sync tab in desktop app settings and add it to Synced folders. Then you can just keep the app on and it’ll sync it automatically
if you set a folder from your vault to be Available Offline on Android, it’ll be read-only - you should use Save to device to get a local copy

DummyME · 2022-01-14T10:22:38.110Z

Everything stops for me at iPad. I have linux, android and ipad. I happen to have an account on MEGA for 50GB free storage (accidentally made one in 2013 or something).
GIT seems to be the only way there other than official sync.

Just to put it out there, GitLab offers 10GB per project storage while GitHub offers about 500MB. ALthough, Git is not supposed to be used as a mere cloud.

EleanorKonik · 2022-01-14T15:36:34.553Z

Here’s a guide that explains how to sync Obsidian on iOS via Rclone. With Rclone you can sync files to remote SFTP servers, WebDAV servers, Google Drive, Amazon S3, and many other providers. (via agmm#4110 in Discord)

arminus · 2022-02-13T10:49:37.791Z

I tried some of the above mentioned approaches and finally settled on Self-hosted LiveSync - running that without issues since a couple of weeks now.

You need to host your own CouchDB somewhere, though. (any low budget VPS works for that - setup is dockerized)

This also made it possible to build an “extension” with which I can easily send text form any device into a document in my synced vault → ObsidianReceiver by just using iOS or Android send-to.