This is a reboot of Is there a way to store the .obsidian folder outside the vault folder which was in the Help sub-forum, and also was locked after 30 days but is still relevant.
Use case or problem
I share my project doc with my team on some cloud (here, Google Drive) and each of us open it in Obsidian. Each of us opens and closes tabs differently, leading to different workspace.json files. Therefore, I often see popup notifications or activity history on the Google Drive web interface polluted with “workspace.json” changed. The artist would see tabs about Audio direction if the composer worked on the project last. If two people work on the doc at the same time, they may even create a conflict, generating some conflicted file or asking “workspace (MACHINE’s conflicted copy DATE)” file (can’t remember the exact name on Google Drive but this is what happens on Dropbox which I also tried running on two machines).
Google Drive currently doesn’t allow ignoring/excluding file patterns from sync
Dropbox has a command-line solution: Choix d’un fichier ou d’un dossier à ignorer - Aide de Dropbox (I tested it, it works on Windows and Linux - but it’s not convenient to have to explain that to each team member)
Third-party services like InSync (which I use) and MultCloud have their own ignore/exclude systems, but some are paid, so I can’t ask my team members to use them just for that (I’m considering having them try MultCloud free plan, but I haven’t tested it myself yet)
Proposed solution
Add an option to place the workspace.json file outside the vault folder:
a. just outside in the outer parent directory, named workspace-unique-vault-name.json to avoid conflicts which other sibling vault folders with the same parent directory
b. in some user folder (Windows AppData, macOS Library/Application Support, Linux .config, etc.), again identifying workspace-unique-vault-name.json.
This may need an extra field “unique vault name” and/or a generated UUID to avoid conflicts. For instance, it rename the file “workscape-(lowercase vault folder name)-UUID.json”
Current workaround (optional)
I have to use the exclude/ignore pattern of my cloud client, if available. Else I need to accept to have frequent workspace.json update notifications and conflicts.
Related feature requests (optional)
As I said, the old locked Help post: Is there a way to store the .obsidian folder outside the vault folder
Notes
On mobile, there is also workspace-mobile.json, but since mobile users use specialized apps which tend to feature exclude patterns (like DropSync or DriveSync), it’s less of an issue, but it would made sense to be consistent with mobile. The user path would different based on the platform, of course.
Also, I’m opening this feature request as last resort, but I still think it’s the cloud sync app’s responsibility to offer ignore/exclude patterns. It’s just that the Obsidian dev team is much more reactive than Google’s dev team…