Optional Obsidian Backups

Use case or problem

This was brought up by HiroMike on the server and I had time so I figured I would open up this FR. He explains it best so I am copying and pasting what he said.

Next time install a simple plugin called Local Backup. It automatically backs up your entire vault to a zip file throughout the day.

Obsidian Devs: might be worth considering something like this as a roadmap item. It works perfectly fine as a plugin but many people come to Obsidian thinking it’s a free version of Notion or something that stores their files in the cloud and they lose their files. Just a thought - make it a built in optional function with a note at install or something “your files are stored locally and not in the cloud. Would you like Obsidian to make periodic backups of your data- can be configured after install if you choose”.

Proposed solution

Be able to enable/disable an automatic backup of your vault to go where you wish. It creates a .zip in a location on your computer that you choose periodically.

Current workaround (optional)

Using the LocalBackup Plugin: GitHub - ifgris/obsidian-local-backup: Automatically creates a local backup of the vault.

Related feature requests (optional)

I think these are closely related…

3 Likes

Also worth of mentioning Time Machine (on mac): How and Why to Back Up Your Mac with Time Machine (Howtogeek.com)

If a certain file is considered then there is File recovery core plugin.

Adding a +1 from someone who pastes our “backup please” message way too many times a day. :slight_smile:

At the very least, making a copy of the vault folder into a different folder would be a low-hanging fruit.

1 Like

File Recovery doesn’t work if your entire drive decides to die for whatever reason. Neither does time machine for that matter.

Yes—use File recovery only for restoring other versions of your notes. However Time Machine can be used with external drives.