Mobile (iOS, Android) Applications

Thanks for posting. Good news in deed.

Just found information about iOS sync:

  1. “Due to iOS security sandboxing, if you choose to create non-iCloud vault, it won’t be accessible by any other apps.”
  2. “Our iOS app supports both Obsidian Sync and iCloud.”

As I Understand, it is not correct. Other apps can access different storages with the help of iOS app “Files”. Here you can select what cloud storages other apps can use. I have such clouds as Google Drive, Yandex.Disk, iCloud Drive and Synology Drive. As example, such markdown editors as

  • One Markdown
  • Pretext
  • MarkDown Pro

have this feature and can access notes in any cloud storages listed in Files.

I store some additional information in my Zettelcasten, including different videos. Thus my storage size is about 500GB. I keep it on my cloud, built on top of Synology NAS. Now I use 1Writer to access it (using WebDav). For me it’s very important to sync my Zettelcasten with Synology Drive. Files app see it and listed apps also do. I’d like to keep my notes there because of 2 reasons:

  • I want to keep my notes on my own local server
  • I Don’t want to buy 500GB of someone else’s cloud storage

It would be great if you add possibility to bind any folder of any other cloud storages as Obsidian vault.

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It is not that simple, sadly.

While many iOS cloud file providers allow you to add files from their storage to other apps, almost none allow you to add or use folders. The only iOS file provider that makes full use of iOS APIs for this purpose is Working Copy, as far as I know.

I don’t have experience with the services you describe, but I tested Synology Drive just now and my suspicions are correct. I imagine it’s the same for the others.

So, sadly, until other cloud storage providers properly use iOS File Provider APIs, there’s not a lot Obsidian’s devs can do to make this work.

Or, well, technically, I think the devs could put in a bunch of work for each and every sync service to support them. But this isn’t really fair. Synology and Dropbox (and so on) should put in the development work so that all other apps can use the features you’re looking for.

That said, Obsidian’s devs have said they’re looking into what they can do to make vault storage more flexible.

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BINGO! Couldn’t have said it better.

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Thank you for the detailed anser! I absolutely agree. Our world should be fair =)

What about WebDAV? I suggest that it supports work with folders natively. 1Writer has this feature and allowed me to add folder on Synology server. And it also doesn’t allow to use other cloud storages probably because of the same issues. WebDAV can be a good way out.

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Yeah, I think that’s one of the options that might be available in the future.

Feel free to submit a request to #mobile so it’s tracked!

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I read through all information I could find about the current state of the mobile app. I was really “shocked” that synching with WebDAV seems not to be on the list of the first synching methods. The need for me as an Apple user to use iCloud (and/or Obsidian Sync) is an absolute show-stopper! I need a solution to sync with my Nextcloud (WebDAV) and not a third-party instance like iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive and so on. I really love Obsidian and the self-determined idea behind it, but until Obsidian is not capable of connecting directly with self-hosted services like Owncloud, Nextcloud it will be unusable for me. WebDAV should IMHO be at the top-most position on the roadmap…hope it will be available in the near future!

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Added feature request here

IMHO, I think using a matured service/API like iCloud will help making developing the mobile App much more feasible. At least at current stage, from 0 to 1, it is perhaps a good choice to get one less problem by not introducing too many tasks.

I think the Markor app is the best for Android. And Markor is opensource (GitHub - gsantner/markor: Text editor - Notes & ToDo (for Android) - Markdown, todo.txt, plaintext, math, ..)

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The mobile apps have been released. For mobile specific requests use #mobile .

This thread can be closed!

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