Set up Obsidian Syncing Across Devices (Free)

Why Obsidian?

Obsidian is fast, uses plain Markdown files, and keeps your data accessible. Your notes aren't locked behind a vendor, it's free for personal use, and you can export everything easily. Themes are clean and there's a lot of them to choose from.

If you enjoy taking notes or writing, it's worth switching to Obsidian.

Challenge to Solve: Free Syncing

Obsidian offers its own syncing service so that your notes "vault" is synced across all your devices. As of writing this, it costs $4 a month. However, if you have OneDrive, Dropbox, etc, there are free options that accomplish the same thing (caveat: work on Obsidian using one device at a time so you don't have overwriting conflicts between device versions of the same doc).

Step 0: Export Your Current Notes

If you already have an Obsidian vault or have your notes saved on another writing app, export everything. Aim for Markdown (.md) files if possible, this is what Obsidian uses. However, plain text works too. Obsidian will display multiple file types.

Fyi: If you have .txt files, you can just convert the file extensions from .txt to .md, which will let Obsidian style the text (e.g. with bold, italics, titles, etc) once they are imported.

Keep these files somewhere you'll remember, you'll be using them in a second.

Note: If you are exporting a folder from your iPhone to Windows device or otherwise have an issue sending, you can use LocalSend (think AirDrop but across any device type).

Step 1: Create the Vault in OneDrive on Your Computer

Note: If you don't have OneDrive and instead use Dropbox, do the exact same but with Dropbox. This tutorial uses Remotely Save which is a Obsidian plugin that enables syncing, Dropbox and OneDrive are both free to sync. You can see a full list of which cloud services are free and which require the "Pro" version of Remotely Save.

1. Open Obsidian on your main computer (PC or Mac).
2. On the launch screen, click Create new vault.
3. Give your new vault a name (e.g., "Obsidian_Notes_Vault").
4. For the location, click Browse and navigate to the main folder where your OneDrive files (or Dropbox) are stored on your computer. Create the vault directly inside that folder.
5. Example path on Windows: C:\Users\YourName\OneDrive\Obsidian_Notes_Vault
6. Example path on Mac: Users/YourName/OneDrive/Obsidian_Notes_Vault
7. Click Create.

That's it for computer-to-computer syncing! AKA as long as you have OneDrive or Dropbox running on two computers, they will sync your work in Obsidian across the computers.

Note: If you have existing notes that you want to import into Obsidian, instead of creating a new doc within Obsidian and copy-pasting the contents in one-by-one, you can drop all of your files into that new "vault" folder you just set up. Again, .md files are best because it's how Obsidian prefers to save its files and allows you "rich text formatting" like bolding, titles, hyperlinks, etc, so if you exported HTML or some other format, try web searching for a conversion tool to get them into Markdown.

Once you drop your files into the folder, you should see them appear in Obsidian.

Step 2: Set Up "Remotely Save" for Mobile Sync

To get the vault syncing with your phone or tablet, you need to use the community plugin called Remotely Save.

First, on Your Computer:

1. With your new vault open in Obsidian, click the Settings gear icon (⚙️) in the bottom-left corner.
2. Go to Community Plugins and click Turn on community plugins. It may close the settings window when you do this so just open it up again and go back to Community Plugins.
3. Click Browse to open the plugin list. Search for Remotely Save.
4. Click Install, and once it's finished, click Enable.
5. Close the community plugins store window. You should now be back to the Settings -> Community Plugins screen and should see Remotely Save under Installed plugins.
6. Click the settings button on Remotely Save.
7. Select OneDrive in the Choose a Remote Service dropdown at the very top (or choose Dropbox).
8. Click the Auth button below and follow the instructions to log in and grant the plugin permission. In OneDrive's case, you just have to copy-paste the URL they give you into a browser and login to Microsoft.
9. You will now see a "rewind" looking icon on the left-hand side panel. Click it to trigger Remotely Save.

Second, on Your Mobile Device (Phone/Tablet):

1. Install and open the Obsidian app.
2. Choose Create new vault.
3. Give the vault the exact same name as the vault you created on your computer (e.g., "Obsidian_Notes_Vault").
4. Once the new empty vault is open, tap the Settings gear icon (⚙️). You may need to first click the icon in the top left to open the side panel, then click Settings.
5. Go to Community Plugins and turn off Restricted Mode.
6. Tap Browse, search for Remotely Save, install it, and enable it.
7. Scroll to the "Installed Plugins" section and click the Remotely Save plugin settings icon.
8. Choose OneDrive as the remote service, tap Auth, and log in to your Microsoft account to grant permission.
9. After authorizing, return to the main vault view. On the bottom bar, you will either see the Remotely Save icon, or see a hamburger menu icon (the three horizontal lines). Click it and click Remotely Save to sync.

That's it, everything is synced 👍

Extra Step: Theming

1. Head back to Settings then click Appearance then click Manage under the Themes section.
2. From here, you can choose from many themes for Obsidian.

Personally, our team is a fan of the "Things" theme but there's so many good ones, Atom, Ayu Mirage, etc.

Notes on Syncing for Remotely Save

By default, Remotely Save syncs at specific times. It does not sync in real-time with every keystroke. The default triggers are:

1. On Startup: The plugin syncs after you launch the Obsidian app on any device.
2. On a Timer: It automatically syncs in the background every 10 minutes by default. You can change this interval in the plugin's settings.
3. Manual Sync: Trigger a sync by clicking the Remotely Save icon in the left-hand menu.

Best Practice: To avoid conflicts, get into the habit of manually syncing before you close Obsidian on one device and before you start working on another.

Note: Obsidian has a core plugin called File Recovery that is on by default and helps mitigate issues of overwriting or sync conflicts.