Too many replies to find if someone mentioned it here, sorry if that’s the case.
I created a second vault that I synced with my vault. Now I have the left pane on both and they are synced in real time. It does raise some security issues but by an extremely small margin, far from counterweighting the advantage of not thinking about this anymore! (I had actually almost forgotten about this issue)
+1. I’d love to see pop-out windows get full access to features like the file explorer, outline, and especially the ribbon. Having these in each window would make working across multiple desktops or focusing on different aspects of my vault way more flexible. Right now, jumping back to the main window for these tools breaks the flow a bit, so this change would be a huge help.
+1
Details here: Multiple Instances of one vault - Feature archive - Obsidian Forum
WORKAROUND: Currently I am using the Obsidian “workspaces” core plugin.
It means that I change desktops (and thus switch to a parallel project), drag my obsidian from desktop 1 to desktop 2 and “load workspace”
its not great but it temporarily works.
+1
WORKAROUND: on MacOs multiple desktops per monitor, leave the primary obsidian window on a specific desktop when I’m done using the sidebar features.
It is a hassle in an otherwise streamlined Obsidian-centric workflow.
Hello, I am writing from 2030 and this is still not implemented. Thank you for your patience, I guess.
+1, please add this.
It’s very weird that when I have a file open in a new window, and I hit the command to show backlinks to this file, this opens in the sidebar of a different window (the main window), which has other files open.
By the way this has been requested in other threads, e.g. Sidebars can't be accessed on additional windows, Having the sidebars open in multiple windows, and probably others.
+1!!!
The workspaces workaround hasn’t worked for me (it actually closed my active window? Maybe I don’t know how to use it…)…
Two vaults seems like a weird workaround…
I want this feature request too but my response is regarding those using Windows 11 Virtual Desktops.
Windows 11 has an option to select “show this window on all desktops”.
Then setup obsidian workspaces for each virtual desktop.
To change workspaces automatically when changing virtual desktops:
This has the advantage of preserving the obsidian workspace in the event the virtual desktops are lost. It also doesn’t require the following: Preserve location of obsidian windows across virtual desktops
I’m mostly just echoing others use cases, but I desire this greatly as well.
I use Obsidian to research and write articles on multiple topics, and assign a desktop to each topic where I can have a focused workspace just for that topic and all the materials I’ve gathered for it.
I very much want to have one Obsidian vault where I have all of my articles (and their research) together in one place – but I want to be able to open a copy of the full Obsidian interface for that vault on each of my working desktops, where I can have a set of panes and such pulled up for that particular topic.
By the way… the fact that I can open folders as vaults is a decent workaround. I can give each topic its own folder and open those as vaults on my different desktops.
But ideally I don’t want to be locked within a subfolder on each workspace. I want to be able to see and access everything, even if I may mostly be working on something specific.
Oh and another problem with opening sub-folders as vaults: They don’t inherit all of the settings from the parent vault. That means you have to reinstall copies of all your plugins and reconfigure your whole working environment.
And canvases break because their cards links are local to the vault. So if you make a canvas with a sub-folder vault, they won’t work in the parent-folder vault and vice versa.
+1 Yeah, this one really surprises me. It is a very needed feature. I really want to have specifically formatted windows for different purposes.
+1 for me. I run into limitations daily because of this missing feature. It’s an absolute workflow killer when using multiple virtual desktops on MacOS and wanting seperate instances of Obsidian on each. Please implement it!
Exactly my workflow and why I want the feature, @djol!
Having multiple projects in one vault is really convenient, especially when you can put each one on its own virtual desktop. But the current limitation where only one window can be the “main” one is pretty annoying - you end up constantly switching between desktops just to access the sidebar or menu functions. It would be much more practical if Obsidian just allowed multiple full windows instead of restricting you to dragging tabs into these stripped-down secondary windows.
Ugh, having links break when using a sub-folder vault is really killing me.
If I drag an image into a note when I have the sub-folder vault, then it’s linked with a path relative to the sub-folder. If I then move up to the parent vault and open that note, the image link is broken.
As much as I’d prefer to have the feature requested in this thread, could this behavior with path linking be considered a bug that could be fixed separately (and much more easily)? It seems like the links should be global, rather than local, such that if I’m using the parent vault, it can still interpret a path created within a sub-folder vault.
This is really driving me crazy. When I have many projects that I want to manage in Obsidian, and want to have a dedicated desktop workspace for each one that I can switch between easily, I have 3 bad options:
Just being able to have multiple of the main window would instantly solve the problem. I’d just put one window on each desktop, each with its relevant project folder expanded.
I have to say, as a new Obsidian user, this is getting pretty annoying. Especially when it’s not immediately clear to me which window is my main window, because I often work in multiple windows and have my sidebars hidden. I’d even love if there was just more of a clear indication that I was working in a secondary window, so I didn’t think it was broken trying to find my sidebars.
Keeping this topic alive- I am subscriber to sync with single-vault option, which is yet another incentive to keep all projects in a single vault. Yet I often have multiple virtual desktops dedicated to each project. Currently, I need to move the main obsidian window between virtual desktops, or recall which of the desktops currently keeps the main window. I would -really- appreciate having multiple main windows for same vault.