So a few days ago I couldn’t find my obsidian app, and after panicking for 15 minutes it showed up again. When I opened the app it had me log back in but after that, all my files were gone. It should be noted that I don’t have obsidian sync and I use Obsidian on my chromebook via the google play store
I want to get my files back because I have a lot of data
I have logged in and checked all the folders and I can’t find anything.
Best practices to protect your critical/important data is to buy a cheap USB stick with, let’s say 10-50 gb space and backup your vault in regular intervals.
You can use free backup tools like rsync to create scheduled backups, to lose just some little, if any of your data. Set your schedule hourly, daily or weekly.
I don’t have a Chromebook, so basically you run a mobile version of Obsidian on a kind of laptop?
Well, uninstalling mobile apps is a very easy and fast process and you’ll lose data created by the specific app you uninstall, that’s how mobile uninstaller work.
To be sure if your vault is still there, use your build in file navigator and check your documents folder or where you created your vault
Your vault should be there, because a vault is user created folder, irrelevant to Obsidian’s created files, eg. preferences.
I don’t know your setup, or if you share your Chromebook with others, who delete your stuff by mistake
Guessing why this deletion happens is impossible from outside without physical access to your Chromebook.
If ChromeOS has a way to search files generally (outside of Obsidian), you may be able to find your files by searching .md.
I hope you find your files, but as Jopp says, it’s important to back them up (that goes for all files you care about, not just Obsidian). Here is a friendly guide you can use: Back up your Obsidian files - Obsidian Help.