Move Files across Symbolic Links

Feature requests
1

Use case or problem

I have a vault that spans multiple places on my disk, all linked together using symbolic links. I e.g. have a “Today’s meetings” folder in one location (A), where I’m working through today’s meeting notes. Once done, I’m moving them to another folder (B) where they are shared with other team members using Sharepoint.

I can move those notes from A to B with any file system tool.

I cannot move them within Obsidian. I get this message:

Uncaught (in promise) Error: EXDEV: cross-dev: not permitted, rename '/A/meeting.md' -> '/B/meeting.md'

Proposed solution

It appears this problem is not specific to Obsidian. Google finds this.

The proposed solution would hence be to, if the rename runs into the above issue, to (offer to) attempt a copy instead, and then delete the original.

Current workaround (optional)

Use a different tool, which is cumbersome as I have to navigate to A and B first while I’ve them open in front of my eyes already, in Obsidian.

2 Likes
2

I also think it’s a nasty bug. My case is slightly different: not symlinks, but mount points inside the vault. Moving a file with Obsidian does nothing: the file stays in place.

I think the developers could easily fix this: moving a file even “between devices” is trivial.

3

I wonder whether there would be a method using symbolic links to move or copy notes between vaults while staying within Obsidian.

Thanks.

1 Like
4

My experiments (on Linux Ext4) show that the problem is not with symlinks.

If the vault contains a symlink to an external directory, the notes move without problems.

The problem appears when the external directory is not just outside the vault, but is located on another partition or a network drive.

In this case, the files need to be moved. Unfortunately, Obsidian only tries to rename them.