Native OneDrive sync support for iOS app

Feature requests
1

Use case or problem

I’m investigating how to implement Obsidian as the recommended digital portfolio solution for upper secondary students across a network of schools. Obsidian meets our core requirements: GDPR compliance through local-first storage, file-over-app principle for long-term ownership, zero cost for pupils and staff, and cross-platform compatibility.

However, we face a critical technical barrier: some of our schools operate in an iPad-only environment with institutional Microsoft 365 accounts. The iOS app currently only supports iCloud Sync (in the free version), preventing students from synchronising their vaults with their institutional OneDrive storage, which is their primary cloud storage solution.

This creates an inconsistent experience compared to the desktop versions, which already support OneDrive through native sync clients. For educational institutions standardised on Microsoft 365 infrastructure, this limitation makes it difficult to adopt Obsidian institution-wide, despite it otherwise being an ideal solution.

Proposed solution

Add native OneDrive synchronisation support to the iOS app, similar to the existing iCloud integration. This would allow students to:

  • Select OneDrive as their sync provider directly within the iOS app
  • Automatically sync their vaults across iPad, Windows, and macOS devices using the same storage backend, and provide access to the teachers to the shared digital portfolios.

This would align the iOS experience with desktop versions and support Obsidian’s philosophy of user choice in data storage providers.

Current workaround (optional)

The “Remotely Save” community plugin supports OneDrive on iOS. However, for institutional deployment, this is not ideal because:

  • It requires enabling community plugins, adding complexity for non-technical students and teachers
  • It creates dependency on a third-party plugin that may have version compatibility issues
  • It increases the technical support burden for schools
  • Community plugins may not be sustainable long-term for institutional use where consistency and reliability are essential
1 Like