Persistent Syncing Issues with Plugins, Settings, and Hotkeys Across Devices

[shayonpal]

What I’m trying to do

I’m trying to sync my Obsidian vaults across multiple devices—Mac Mini, MacBook Air, iPad Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and Boox Palma—without losing any settings, 3rd party plugins, or hotkeys in the process. While Obsidian Sync does a great job syncing notes, it consistently fails to sync the plugins, vault settings, and hotkeys between devices. This has been an ongoing issue for the last 1-2 years, and it becomes especially problematic after resetting a device or adding a new one. Ideally, I would like a seamless syncing experience that maintains all vault configurations across devices.

I have been subscribed to Obsidian Sync since its inception and have relied on it for syncing notes. However, it consistently fails to sync plugins, vault settings, and hotkeys across devices.

With the recent introduction of iCloud’s new feature in iOS 18 and macOS 15, which keeps files downloaded automatically, I hoped that this would resolve the issue. Unfortunately, even with my vault downloaded on all my Apple devices, I still encounter the following problems:

1. Obsidian takes up to a minute to load when using iCloud Sync.
2. iCloud Drive doesn’t sync dot files, so my settings still don’t sync properly.

I also tried experimenting with a smaller vault containing just a few plugins and custom hotkeys, but even with this much smaller setup, I experienced similar syncing issues.

I’m looking for advice on how to fix these issues or a reliable solution for syncing settings, plugins, and hotkeys across all devices.

Things I have tried

• I tested iCloud Sync with a separate clone of my original vault to avoid mixing up the content and settings of my main vault, but the syncing issues persisted.
• I tried saving the Obsidian Vault in the Documents folder of iCloud, hoping it would be treated as a local vault while staying synced by iCloud. However, iCloud’s inability to sync dot files meant my settings still didn’t sync.
• As mentioned above, I also tried syncing a smaller vault with only a couple of plugins and custom hotkeys. Even with this smaller setup, syncing failed.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Pch]

I can’t really speak for Obsidian Sync (as I sync my vaults across devices through iCloud) but from what I understand from the documentation, Obsidian Sync does sync settings across devices, just not in the background, see here: Troubleshoot Obsidian Sync - Obsidian Help

Here’s what Obsidian Sync syncs by default:

The default vault configuration sync settings include:

• Other file types
• Main settings
• Appearance
• Themes and snippets
• Hotkeys
• Active core plugin list
• Core plugin settings

And for Community plugins, it also mentions:

To sync community plugins, manually toggle Active community plugin list and Installed community plugin list.

One thing that Obsidian Sync doesn’t sync though indeed sync settings, so they need to be set on each device

When it comes to dot folders, Obsidian Sync apparently doesn’t sync them with the exception of the needed and hidden .obsidian folder which contains the whole vault configuration (plugins, snippets, etc…). See here: Select files and settings to sync - Obsidian Help

Now, when it comes to syncing vault through iCloud, especially if you intend to sync a vault on iPhone/iPad, that vault needs to be placed in a very specific folder on iCloud Drive called Obsidian .

Because Apple imposed some restrictions on mobile, this specific folder is the only one Obsidian can access and manage when using the Obsidian mobile app.

So this is where all the vaults you intend to store and sync across devices (iPhone/iPad/Mac) through iCloud should live .

If I remember correctly , if that folder doesn’t exist already in iCloud Drive, Obsidian creates it automatically when you create a vault from Obsidian Mobile and toggle the Store in iCloud option (like it does for local vault) .

Once the dedicated Obsidian folder exists and it contains a vault you need to sync to one of your Mac, you can easily retrieve it from Obsidian Desktop by going to Manage you vaults > Open folder as vault …

If it was to sync vault across Mac only, you could place your vaults anywhere in iCould Drive and it would sync (settings included… although, after a quick test, they might need some time to appear and probably involve a reboot of Obsidian on the device which should pick up the changed settings ).
But because there’s a mobile device involved, because of Apple restrictions/sandboxing on mobile, using the dedicated Obsidian iCloud Drive folder to store and sync your vault is mandatory

About the .dot files though … Obsidian doesn’t use .dot files. It uses a .dot folder (.obsidian) to store the configuration of a vault which is hidden by default. But none of the files it contains is actually a .dot file.

On Mac you can easily unhide/hide these type of files/folder but on mobile, you can’t see them from within the Files app.
You need to use another app which can access these (I use Textastic on iPhone/iPad because I bought it ages ago… But I know there are others and some are free (Taio iirc )).

From what I’ve tested/seen though, iCloud Drive does sync .dot files/.dot folders.
I mean, some of my vaults are followed by git (which involves a .gitignore file and a .git folder both normally hidden) and I never had issues with that

I hope this isn’t too confusing … and that it will still help you a little