Sync: Progress bar or other progress update

Feature requests
1

Use case or problem

The “sync activity” in the settings is useful for knowing that something is happening, but I can’t tell how much more is left to happen.

Am I ten seconds away from sync being up-to-date (I’ll just wait) or is it ten minutes (time to grab a coffee)?

Proposed solution

Some sort of indicator in the sync settings or sync activity of how much longer it will take to be up-to-date with the remote view.

I have no strong opinions on what this could look like, but here’s one idea: a log message every 10 files until you’re fully up-to-date:

2023-09-13 20:26 - Accepted myfile.txt
2023-09-13 20:26 - 20 files remaining to download from server
2023-09-13 20:26 - Accepted anotherfile.txt
…
2023-09-13 20:27 - Accepted yetanotherfile.txt
2023-09-13 20:27 - 10 files remaining to download from server

There are fancier ways you could do this, e.g. to guess how long it will take to download the remaining files based on how long it took to download what you’ve already got – potentially nice, but not required.

Current workaround

I wait until it’s done.

Related feature requests

The closest feature request I could find was Display sync status on mobile when in progress, but:

  • That’s only for mobile, and I’d like this on desktop as well
  • That’s to tell you that a sync is happening, but not how long it will take

This is probably low priority

I suspect I’m atypical in wanting this in a prominent place – most people probably sync their vaults regularly, so in any given sync they only have a few updates to pull.

I have devices that I only sync occasionally – maybe once a month or so. When they do sync, they have a lot of updates to fetch! It all works itself out in the end, but it would be nice if I knew how long I’d be waiting.

2 Likes
2

As I said, it’s time to provide a progress bar for syncing. I really love obsidian sync, but every time I sync (especially the first one on a new device) I always wonder how long it will take for the sync to complete. When I’m on Windows I can leave it alone, but when the sync happens on Android, I’m always worried that the sync will be terminated. I guess synchronous visualization will help alleviate my concerns about this.

6 Likes
3

a sync progress indicator would be super useful. I’ve lost some notes when I start writing on my mobile, not realizing that my notes are still syncing. This is particularly a problem for my “daily notes”, because of course I edit this many times throughout the day.

1 Like
4

update: I found there’s a sync icon already, slide over from the right edge of the screen and see the sync icon in the right sidebar.

5

@Otsukioqua There is also a feature request to make the Sync icon always visible, and within that request a link to a CSS snippet that does it. [Mobile] Make Sync icon always visible

1 Like
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+1 this for desktop. I re-organized my top level folder structure on my Macbook 18 hours ago, and it’s still syncing. I have more changes to make, but I want the current sync to finish before I make any more changes.

Problem, I have no idea how close to “done” it is, so I cannot plan when to make my next changes.

7

Use case or problem

I would like to have a sync/loading bar like iCloud syncing has. Right now using Obsidian sync it is possible to overwrite the old note if one doesn’t wait a certain amount of time for all notes to be synced to the latest version. But I don’t always know which note I edited and there is no visualization of syncing other than going in the settings and opening the sync log until it is fully synced.

Proposed solution

I would like to have a clear visual representation a splash screen or something where it locks me from edits until the remote vault is up to date.

Current workaround (optional)

On short notes (daily notes usually) where I know I had written something earlier in the day I just wait until it updates and adds the text.

8

In my experience when syncing the “same note” it doesn’t overwrite it combines them. (using obsidian sync).

What use case have you come across that overwrites a file? Have you gone to the Sync settings to see if you can reverse the changes to the file?

Just curious :slight_smile:

9

I had some incidences a couple of versions back, posted on the subreddit back then. I was able to recover everything, thanks god for the sync history feature. But I still think Obsidian Sync could use some polish. Differentiating between nonexistent embeds and nonsynced embeds would be nice (I am aware this is being worked on in v 1.5.3, I’m having some problems there as well), and a clear syncing state would be nice. Lately I’ve been opening the Obsidian app quite oftenly so I didn’t notice the loading bar because the syncing was probably done so fast that I didn’t notice. I will keep an eye on how it works on larger syncs.

1 Like
10

There is defiantly a challenge with some plugins.

I’ve had issues with “Waypoint” because of how it functions. Going between mobile and desktop when they where out of sync, waypoint creates files if not there so this can confuse sync software for sure!

Some polish, extra UI around enabling/disabling it. Syncing is a tricky thing! Usually my changes ends up leading to 1000’s of files moving and added at a time so syncing takes long and can get stuck BUT luckily I’ve learned enough from plugins messing up things to avoid them or use them on smaller vaults until tested.

Good luck!

1 Like