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Confusion about where new folders go
Hi, I’m a new Obsidian user on the latest version on a Mac.
I see in Help Doc that new folders are created at the “root” of the Vault. Does that mean in the same file folder as the Vault folder on my computer, or within the Vault folder. I expected everything to go into the Vault folder. Mine are always created outside the Vault folder. New notes always go inside the Vault folder regardless, even though I have the setting to put them in the current location. I have to manually move them (dragging or right clicking) to get them into that new folder. Notes I put into one of those outside folders do appear in the graph view as part of the main vault.
Is this the normal behavior?
I tried a css snippet that I found from a search to try to hide the Vault folder from the navigation column, but it didn’t work even after activating it. Do I really need to right click on the vault folder every time I want to add a folder in there?
Looking at your screenshots, the vault name here is Obsidian with three folders inside of it: Folder 1, Folder 2, and Obsidian Vault.
What’s the parent / one level up folder from Obsidian? Is it iCloud Drive?
In any event, I think you’ve just opened the wrong folder as vault. In the finder, I would drag Folder 1 and Folder 2 into Obsidian Vault, and then within Obsidian’s vault switcher (“Manage Vaults…”) click Open folder as vault and choose the Obsidian Vault folder.
Thanks for the reply. I manually created that Obsidian folder inside my iCloud Drive and then created my first Vault within it. So it really should be the Vault. Could the name of the folder be the issue? The hidden .obsidian folder is also inside that Obsidian folder in iCloud.
Yeah, so that path was just wrong. iCloud Drive uses that Obsidian folder as a container for other vaults (it’s not to be used as a vault itself). Here I have four vaults in iCloud Drive:
You can move that .obsidian settings folder out of iCloud Drive/Obsidian/ as it won’t be used anymore if you’ve opened your Obsidian Vault as the vault.
In any event, I tried your suggestion and a new Obsidian Vault window popped up without the enclosing “Obsidian Vault” folder in the navigation column. I quit the app and relaunched it, and now things are looking as I expected. I looked at iCloud and there still seems to be only one folder in there. Thanks.
the original Obsidian vault may still be in the list. You can remove it (three dots) to avoid future confusion. I’ve, for sure, opened the wrong / an old vault from this list before.
Yeah, it was in there. I removed it from the list. It’s funny to me that just creating that folder made it into the vault. Everything’s good now, thanks.
