Self-Hosted Sync (iPhone / iPad / Desktop) Using Nextcloud WebDAV

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First, a quick note: Obsidian Sync is excellent.

I used it for about a year and was a very happy user. It is:

  • extremely reliable

  • very fast

  • works even on restrictive corporate devices

  • almost completely frictionless

For many people, it is probably the best option available.

However, I recently started exploring whether I could hold my digital life myself, without relying on external cloud services. I already run some self-hosted infrastructure at home, so I wanted to see if I could build a reliable sync solution for Obsidian as well.

This turned out to be harder than expected.

Below is what I learned.

iPhone / iPad syncing without cloud services is surprisingly difficult

On desktop systems, we have many tools that can easily sync folders: Syncthing, Nextcloud client, and various filesystem sync tools.

But iOS does not allow background filesystem sync in the same way.

Apps generally cannot keep a folder continuously synchronized unless they use Apple’s iCloud system.

This means many typical self-hosting approaches simply do not work well on iPhone or iPad.

Git workflows can work, but create friction for daily notes

A common suggestion is a Git-based workflow:

Obsidian Git plugin + GitHub / Gitea / GitLab + Working Copy (iOS)

This can be a very good solution for technical documentation, version-controlled writing, and team collaboration. But for daily note-taking, it introduces friction.

WebDAV via the Remotely Save plugin works well

The most practical self-hosted solution I found is: Obsidian + Remotely Save plugin + WebDAV on Nextcloud. This works across all my devices.

Example endpoint:
your-nextcloud/remote.php/dav/files/username/Documents/

Important detail:

The plugin seems to expect the parent folder rather than the vault folder itself.

Example structure:

Documents/PersonalVault/

You configure the plugin with:

Documents/

and the plugin syncs the vault folder inside it using the vault name on your device.

Important desktop setup step (avoid double type of sync)

If you already use the Nextcloud desktop client, make sure you do not sync the vault twice.

Avoid this situation: Nextcloud filesystem sync between desktops, laptop and server + Remotely Save WebDAV sync for portable devices

Instead, on your desktop, laptop

  1. Keep the Vault on the server side

  2. Backup and remove the local folder sync within the Nextcloud desktop app

  3. Create a new local folder outside Nextcloud

  4. Let Remotely Save handle all syncing to the new Folder

Trash configuration

The plugin allows two options: System trash and Obsidian trash

I recommend using Obsidian trash. Deleted notes stay inside the vault: .trash

This means they:

  • sync across devices

  • remain in server backups

  • can be restored later

To keep behavior consistent:

  • configure Obsidian to use vault trash

  • configure the plugin to use Obsidian trash

Config files syncing

The plugin warns that syncing the .obsidian folder is experimental.

In practice, I had no issues syncing configuration files, including:

  • plugins

  • themes

  • vault configuration

All devices stayed aligned. It is a bit early to say, but it worked well in my setup.

Security note

In my setup, the WebDAV endpoint is not exposed directly to the internet.

Access is limited to:

  • my local network

  • or VPN access to my home network

I also use:

  • HTTPS

  • Nextcloud app passwords (instead of normal user password, because the plug in save it locally for friction-free sync)

  • two-factor authentication

  • Disk-level encryption

I’m not using E2E encryption to make it harder and slower, given my setup.

Hopefully, this helps others who want to keep their notes self-hosted and take back their digital lives.

2 Likes
2

I removed “Obsidian” from the title to avoid confusion with the Obsidian Sync service (and because everything here is about Obsidian :slightly_smiling_face:).

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Yes, Remotely Save is an excellent work. It supports a wide variety of services and I have used it for months.

But after extensive use, I did found some frictions. For example, deleted notes come back (you can search for the same-name issue in its GitHub repo) is the very reason that drove me quit. When I tried to manually fix the chaos of notes it caused in my machines, it accidentally wiped my entire vault.

Now I’m “secretly” developing another WebDAV sync plugin for Obsidian that doesn’t have this annoying issue. It may be launched onto Obsidian plugin marketplace once I’m free.

Have you encountered this issue? Or have you met any frictions like changes in notes/configs get reverted?

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Hi, Im just quite new to the obsidian world and looking for a good save self hosted sync as well, so i stumbled into this here.
I am using a Stack for a Personal Knowledge Base based on Qdrant, i want to use obsidian as kind of a frontend to access notes and have a nice clean view of interconnections of topics. I like the graph view of obsidian a lot for that.

I’m asking myslef if that option would be suitable for syncing my Qdrant based vault with your self hosted sync, as id like to implement Nextcloud hosting for my whole system in the next step as well..