Using Obsidian Sync with GrapheneOS

[Bayunco]

What I’m trying to do

I have recently installed GrapheneOS (GOS) on my cell phone, and I am trying to determine if what I’d like to do will work and is the best option. For those who may not know, GOS is a custom OS for Android which allows one to have separate user profiles within the cell phone, similar to user profiles on a PC. The only difference is that the profiles do not speak to each other, nor do they share files.

From my understanding on how both GOS and Obsidian works is that I could in theory have Obsidian (with sync) installed on more than one GOS user profile, and it would not create any sync issues, because, as far as Obsidian knows, these are two separate devices. Would this be accurate?

In the same vein, I assume if I wanted to delete Obsidian for whatever reason, I need to stop sync in the relevant profile before deleting Obsidian and the old files.

Things I have tried

I tried looking this topic up on search and asking in the Discord, but was unsuccessful in getting a response to this use case. Looking forward to anyone who may have this use case or more insight.

[CawlinTeffid]

@Bayunco

From my understanding on how both GOS and Obsidian works is that I could in theory have Obsidian (with sync) installed on more than one GOS user profile, and it would not create any sync issues, because, as far as Obsidian knows, these are two separate devices. Would this be accurate?

That’s accurate. There is some risk of issues (conflicts) if one of the profiles goes unused for long stretches of time (that’s true of devices too).

@Bayunco

In the same vein, I assume if I wanted to delete Obsidian for whatever reason, I need to stop sync in the relevant profile before deleting Obsidian and the old files.

Sync only operates when Obsidian is open, so this shouldn’t be needed. But the notes may be deleted with the app (this happens on some mobile OSes when the notes are in storage that’s dedicated to the app), so make sure you have copies elsewhere if you want to keep them.

[Bayunco]

@CawlinTeffid

Sync only operates when Obsidian is open, so this shouldn’t be needed. But the notes may be deleted with the app (this happens on some mobile OSes when the notes are in storage that’s dedicated to the app), so make sure you have copies elsewhere if you want to keep them.

Got it. Is there a way to make sure this doesn’t happen? I think this exact thing happened to me when I switched phones, and all my notes were wiped across devices. If it wasn’t for a backup I had, I would’ve been screwed.

[CawlinTeffid]

All you should need to do is close Obsidian. To be sure you can swipe it out of the app switcher to force close it (assuming Graphene works like Android and iOS). To be extra sure you can go to Settings > Sync and disconnect from the remote vault. To be extra extra sure you can then log out of your Obsidian account in that vault. (These last 2 need to be done in each vault on the device.)

Given your experience, you may want to double check that your vaults aren’t affected by some other sync system.