I downloaded the iOS app today and wanted to sync my existing Obsidian vault (which I set up on my Mac) through iCloud. However, I keep getting the “Your iCloud vault was not detected.” error message.
I the tried taking a different approach – setting up the vault through the iPhone app first, but found out I have no “Store in iCloud” option available in the app.
Things I have tried
I made sure my Obsidian vault is set up correctly (it is within an Obsidian folder in the root of my iCloud Drive) and syncs (I was able to see it from my phone, and made sure to manually Download it as well).
I reset my iCloud connection and also restarted my iPhone.
I deleted and downloaded the iPhone app gain.
I am guessing something must have been changed in the app within the last couple of days, but not sure if it’s an actual feature or a bug. As it is now, I don’t have a way to connect to my iCloud from within the app, even though everything seems to be set up correctly.
When trying to create a new vault from the opening screen, there is no “Store in iCloud” option.
But when I first create a vault and then delete it, I land on a different screen where I can also create a new vault and there, I do get the “Store in iCloud” option.
I was able to create the iCloud vault like this, but it seems like a bug, because I don’t think the UI should be this inconsistent, especially since it seems like quite a core functionality.
Here’s what I noticed. The only way the iOS/iPad OS Obsidian app recognizes a folder in cloud as the “Obsidian” folder is if it creates it itself. So while creating an Obsidian folder in the iCloud folder on macOS fails, creating a vault from the iOS app also creates an Obsidian folder on iCloud. Then you can use it and create new vaults from macOS as well.
Strange. Obsidian should be checking for an iCloud folder as you as you open the app, and if one doesn’t exist - creating one, or at least asking the user if they want one.
I got the same issue, and no matter what I try I cannot create a vault from the iOS app. The method you tried does not work for me, but even if I go to the vault manager and create a new one (where an explicit “store in iCloud” toggle is present) I still get errors trying to setup a vault.
the app keeps telling me I do not have permissions to access iCloud. I tried some other methods listed on this forum, like going to my iCloud settings and checking “Apps Syncing to iCloud Drive”, but there Obsidian does not show up. Obsidian is enabled in my iCloud settings.
I did all my work on my Mac but the Obsidian folder is in iCloud. I checked it on the website and it’s there. Yet Obsidian on my phone won’t find it. I can see it in Files on my phone, but not in Obsidian. Okay, so I create a new Obsidian vault on my phone and then check in Files on the phone. Guess what? There are two Obsidian folders in iCloud now…the one with all my files from my Mac and the one that I created on my phone. They have the same exact name! How is this possible? When I go back to my Mac I also see two Obsidian folders in iCloud. There is something about the one that the phone created that the Mac doesn’t have…there’s some difference. Does anyone have any insight as to what this difference is?
Actually, I found the problem. The iCloud root folder is “user_account”/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs. I had an Obsidian folder under this that I thought would have worked. However, Obsidian on iOS is looking for “user_account”/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents. The iOS app is looking in an extremely specific location for the folder and will fail if it’s not there. So, create the vault on your iOS device and then on your Mac move the files into that folder under iCloud. That worked for me. The only problem is that I have to reinstall all the Community Plug-Ins on my phone and configure every one of them. That is something that should be in the .obsidian folder captured as JSON, which it is. But the iOS app ignores them and so they all need to be reinstalled and set up. Having to set these up twice seems like a waste of time. Anyway, I hope this helps.
Issue I had:
I copied my vaults from Windows into the top-level folder of the iCloud Drive app (for Windows) and synced everything. I could see the files appear in the Files app on my iPad, but the Obsidian app didn’t recognize them.
How I solved it:
I noticed that after copying the files to the top-level folder, iCloud/Obsidian automatically created another folder at the top level named Obsidian, with the Obsidian icon. I believe this is what they refer to as the Top-Level Obsidian folder. Once I moved all the vaults into this folder, the Windows-to-iPad sync started working, and the app was able to detect the folder.
Optional:
If the Obsidian app still doesn’t recognize it, create a new vault from within the app as suggested in this thread. This should help the app recognize the rest of the folders inside the top-level folder. You can delete the temporary vault later if you want.
What’s the issue, more precisely ? …
What are you trying to achieve exactly ?
Normally, to use Obsidian on your iPhone/iPad, storing your vault(s) and syncing them through iCloud, all you should need to do is:
Download Obsidian mobile on the device
Open Obsidian
Once Obsidian is open:
Tap on “Create a vault”
Then: Tap on Setup Sync
Then: Select the iCloud option and tap on: use iCloud
Then: Give a name to the vault you want to create and tap on Create vault
If you then open the Files app on your iPhone/iPad and head to iCloud Drive, you should find the dedicated Obsidian folder where all the vaults you might want to store in iCloud Drive and sync across devices (using iCloud) should live
If you don’t want to store your vault(s) in iCloud Drive and instead store it/them locally, on your device, you can select Continue without sync…
The vault you create from there will be stored in Files app > On My iPhone > dedicated Obsidian folder
At least, after testing, these are the steps for a very 1st install/setup on an iPhone …
hope someone knows
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