Obsidian hit by a disaster (sorry for the longish description)

[JAR1]

(Windows 10) I had a large and fairly involved Obsidian file in the making. When I went to Obsidian in the taskbar it would immediately bring my file up.

Recently I’ve had problems caused by OneDrive, which, I thought wouldn’t affect Obsidian (because most files and the directories/files they use I don’t keep in my Desktop or Documents folders)

Now, after having been away from Obsidian for about two weeks, when I bring up the app I’m presented with a window with the following options:

[Quick Start]

[Create] new vault

[Open] folder as vault

Open vault from Obsidian Sync [Sign in] I’ve never messed with Obsidian Sync

I’m afraid I’ve lost everything. But there might be hope.

There are Vault(s)on my computer : notably one with (and I’ve only gone down one level)

• Obsidian vault
  • .obsidian (folder)
    • Plugins (folder)
    • Templates (folder)
    • Themes (folder)
    • JSON Files
  • .Trash (folder containing .md files)
  • Music (the name of my Obsidian file)
    • .obsidian (folder)
    • Obsidian (folder)
• Etc.
• Can I restore my original Obsidian file from this???
• (p.s. isn’t this what the file structure of Obsidian is supposed to be all about—being able to reconstruct it from ASCII files?)

[ariehen]

That’s the structure of a vault. A vault is just a folder.

Here’s the “Obsidian Sandbox” with some plugins and a theme installed:

First off, make a backup/copy of your folder just to be safe. Make sure the folder you want to be your vault is somewhere local only - you can move it to the OneDrive folder later once its set back up.

Use the Obsidian vault switcher to “Open folder as vault” and direct the File Explorer at the folder. Repeat with any other vaults you have.