As users previously suggested for those having problems transferring to a new PC, I tried to transfer my old vault to the newly downloaded Obsidian in Windows 11. But I don’t know how to open the vault.
Then I thought perhaps importing. But I couldn’t find anything on importing from an older version to a newer version or from one computer to another.
Then I tried to simply transfer the files into the new program. That didn’t work either.
I’m not all that computer literate, so if you have a suggestion on how to do this, treat me like I was born in last century.
It should be fairly simple (although I’ve never done it for Obsidian specifically myself):
Note: If you don’t have your old vault then you should start by locating it and copying it to your new PC (step 1). If however you do have your vault copied to your new PC, you can skip to step 6:
On your old PC, open Obsidian and click the “Open another vault” button at the bottom-left of the program (it’s the third icon from the bottom – you can hover over it with the mouse cursor to see its name).
In the new pop-up window that opens (with Obsidian’s logo), you’ll see your vault name listed on the left. Click its three-vertical-dots icon and choose “Reveal vault in system explorer”. This will open Windows’ File Explorer.
Right-click your vault folder in File Explorer and choose Copy.
You’ll need a USB flash drive so that you can paste this folder and transfer it to your new PC. Once you find one, insert it into a USB slot and right-click Paste in the main area’s empty space of the new File Explorer window that pops up (if it doesn’t, navigate to “This PC” on the left of File Explorer, find your connected USB drive and click it before pasting as instructed above). That’s all for the old PC.
On your new PC, open Windows’ File Explorer and navigate to a place where you would like to permanently store your vault. Now connect the USB drive to your new PC (it should open another File Explorer window), right-click on your vault folder and choose Cut, then Paste it in the other File Explorer which has been navigated to your new PC’s preferred vault storage location.
Now open Obsidian, and, again, at the bottom-left choose “Open another vault”. If you can’t do this, you’re probably seeing the pop-up with the Obsidian logo I mentioned earlier. In that case, just click “Open folder as vault” in the middle of the window.
In the new pop-up window which appears, navigate to your preferred vault location where pasted your vault. When you see your vault folder, single-click on it (you don’t need to double-click to go inside of it, but you can), then click “Select Folder” at the bottom of the pop-up window.
Now your old vault should be known to Obsidian and open every future time you open Obsidian. You’ve now copied your vault from your old PC to your new PC . You can unplug the USB drive and continue using Obsidian as you always have.
. You can unplug the USB drive and continue using Obsidian as you always have.