iCloud Keeps Eating Obsidian Vaults
Users are experiencing significant issues with Obsidian's synchronization capabilities, leading to data loss, duplication, and instability across various platforms and cloud services. This frustration stems from inconsistencies in syncing behavior, limitations in version control, and difficulties integrating with different storage solutions. The core pain is a lack of dependable, seamless data synchronization.
SOURCES (60)
“This is android we're talking about, it limits access to app files (so files inside obsidian's app won't be accessible). I use obsidian sync so I don't want anything that could conflict with it. I was wondering if obsidian itself can access a file in…”
“You could try syncthing. If you run two instances of it, you can sync when changes from outside of Obsidian change the file. And then one that syncs your changes in obsidian to the external store. Or maybe using two different syncing apps might be the play. Maybe freefilesync or unison?”
“I'd like to keep my notes in the app storage instead of internal storage on android (to limit access to my notes). However, there is one file that I use as a log that I need other apps to be able to access and write to. How can I include one file located outside my vault into my vault for obsidian sync to copy across my devices? submitted by /u/Souloid [link] [comments]”
“I have a vault for PKM. One for my agents workflow. Don't stress too much. It's just folders and you can move them around easily if you structure that way.”
“For me yes, though I only solved it a little while ago. In my case, I had the vault in a onedrive folder on my PC, as well as had Obsidian Sync - the onedrive folder was messing things up. Since I already had obsidian sync, I switched to that, and . I did end up nuking my vault and redownloading from sync, and the icloud folder was incredibly pesky to delete, since windows wants to automatically put everything in onedrive. Now when I drop CSVs into my vault, they automatically pop up :)”
“I recently discovered Syncthing app and decided to share it because it's awesome. It's open source app to synchronize files between devices. So i took it and set it to sync my vault folder from desktop and mobile phone and the sync just simply work. Just like that. I edit note on my desktop and in few seconds I have it on my mobile. Without paid sync service or fighting with other cloud synchronization methods submitted by /u/Cisiur2 [link] [comments]”
iOS 26.5 / Obsidian 1.12.7 – “Your iCloud vault was not detected” although the vault is correctly located in iCloud Drive
“I’ve dabbled in multi vaults. I do have a full work vault that is only done to maintain confidentiality. You want single vault trust me. Eventually you can just copy paste the folder out. Make sure you have. Thesis folder though. It’s super annoying switching vaults when you have an idea for your thesis while simultaneous want to note something in your life”
“If you’re using all Apple devices, this is the way. It’s easy, already in your device and if you need to pay for space (my vault is small enough that I’m okay with the 5GB given by Apple for free) you’d be also getting more space for your devices in general and it could be cheaper than obsidian sync at the same time. However, people do have a point with supporting the products you like and use. So even then it’s not a bad idea either to just use Obsidian sync if you want/can.”
“How are you syncing? Where is your Vault located? It is usually a cloud drive problem.”
“Searching the sub gives you plenty of good answers https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/search/?q=Syncing”
“Also if you’re on iPhone or Apple devices, go into files app and turn on the “keep downloaded” setting by holding down on your vault file. I had massive load times before finding it.”
“Obsidian sync was suggested in the comments and I support it, also use it in an extended plan for 100 GB or something like that. However it must be noted that it's not a true real-time sync. Sometimes it takes multiple minutes for the application to synchronize between desktop and mobile. It's totally fine for most use cases but when you want to quickly synchronize a link from mobile to desktop to watch it on a big screen, it's a pain in the ass.”
“Obsidian Sync. The folder is on my Mac. I was able to get it to sync on my Air. But it’s being super weird like this on my iPhone.”
“Hey all, I have no clue what I’m doing wrong but every time I try to sync with a folder on my desktop this happens on my phone (see pic). It’s just infinite folders all the way down. What am I doing wrong? submitted by /u/joshfern [link] [comments]”
“Is there a solid sync option (ideally google drive but not needed) that: is not p2p I was going to use syncthing but the architecture means atleast 2 devices has to have a connection for getting the synced state, ie. think work pc and home pc wont even often be on at the same time.. syncs automatically without having to manually sync by running a sync command/button or even setting up an interval sync (every x minutes) Ive looked into some plugins, a few of those simply rely on manually clicking”
“Since my setup is using the Cursor CLI talk to Telegram, then yes the computer has to be on. For the Hermes setup, I suspect so too but do not know for sure because I don't use Hermes.”
“so i recently found out that mega lets u sync folders on ur phone, so technically this means i can sync my obsidian vault between my phone and laptop using mega but i don't know if it would work well, anyone already using this method? the way i currently sync my vault is using syncthing, to sync the vault between my phone and laptop, and from my laptop to google drive, but i'm moving away from google drive and this is how i found this mega feature, what do u guys think? submitted b”
Obsidian (Windows) + Claude Code (WSL2) sharing one vault — best filesystem architecture?
“obsidian just opens your markdown files in your vault (a folder on your computer), so if u already have a way of synching regular folders across your devices, obsidian will be able to open them anywhere”
“So… you’re not using the vault for anything then? If you’re j feeding the folders directly into the AI, then is obsidian doing anything besides giving you a visual representation of the data?”
“I use https://syncthing.net/ Clone all vault on local folder, sync every minute. It's simplier than rsync and works well. For a more simple solution, I think dropbox or Mega are the way.”
“So, I want to sync my Obsidian vault quickly through Google Drive. I've tried a lot of different cloud solutions, but so far this is the most reliable option. My other computers also work well with Google Drive in Mirror mode. I configured rclone for Google Drive, but the problem is that if I open Obsidian directly from the mounted drive, startup takes around 10 minutes. On top of that, plugins, CSS snippets, and scripts end up being disabled, so I have to re-enable everything manually. Afte”
“Is there an Obsidian plugin that can automatically synchronize two copies of the same vault between two phones when they are nearby, without Internet, without servers, and without requiring both devices to be connected to an existing Wi-Fi network? submitted by /u/delgado_andrew [link] [comments]”
“Depends on the action. Deleting a note inside a synced vault is a real delete — VaultSync uses send-receive sync, so the deletion propagates to your other devices, same as any real sync (Obsidian Sync, Dropbox, etc.). Removing a vault from the app, on the other hand, just stops syncing it on that device — nothing is deleted anywhere else.”
“WORKAROUND UPDATE: Thank you, u/JorgeGodoy , for suggesting adding the Vault path to the shortcut. That did the trick. Currently, I use only one Vault and launch Obsidian on Windows 11 using a shortcut pinned to my Taskbar. Whenever I launch Obsidian, about 50% of the time, it opens the Vault. The other 50% of the time, it opens the Vault Selector dialog where I have to choose the Vault. Is there a way to force opening a specific Vault? Like setting it as "default" or similar? Is anyon”
“Both questions answered here: I don't know what 'stuff going on' you might be referring to - with owners? SyncThing is under a copyleft licence, and has no owners per se. I find it works well, albeit with some consideration around what to put in the SyncThing ignore file, between several devices. However I don't use any Apple equipment and I understand the way Apple locks down what its users may do with their own devices can make it a pain to use SyncThing on an Apple mobile phon”
“I'm trying to sync both my pc and phone. I added the folder on my pc and connected the devices to each other. However after adding the vault folder, the syncthing server info showed 0 files and directories. I did ignore patterns and nothing changed. What should I do? submitted by /u/Top-Onion-5196 [link] [comments]”
“What’s wrong with syncthing? I use a free app on iPhone called Synctrain to sync between my computer and phone using syncthing. My vault is quite large as well.”
“I used to pay for Obsidian Sync, because it was easy and supported this software. After about 2 years of that, I transitioned to using the iCloud storage I was already using. I love Obsidian but I wanted to try and save money where I could. Then I had some problems with iCloud drive and Obsidian - it was not as smooth as it would like - so I started using Syncthing. Currently, Syncthing keeps everything in line between my PC, MacBook, and my home server (which is otherwise used for Jellyfin and”
“I pay for the official sync. Obsidian is an amazing software and after trying many other foss alternatives I came back to it and I'd rather support it and keep it alive. Regarding storage limitations have you evaluated your file sizes? I too store a lot of meetings notes and I found that the default output was too high quality for what I needed and managed to compress A LOT audio images and pdfs.”
“I use Onedrive for windows and for android and then rmount onedrive with the Linux box.”
“Good question, I did not even think that this may be a problem. But no, at least I did not notice any problem with things like that.”
“Wow, I don't know why I haven't heard of this before. This seems significantly easier and better than livesync”
“I use Syncthing without many issues. Only thing I have to do is visit the localhost control panel if I haven't used that device in a while.”
“My vault is in iCloud so my desktop and laptop can both get to it. For my phone I have a mini Vault (because it will only look for an Obsidian app iCloud folder on mobile) that I use on the go and have Claude take what’s important there and integrate into my main vault”
“The vault is a google drive folder for me. So i can access it via mac, phone, literally anywhere”
“I manage it using Git and GitHub. I use a plugin on my PC and GitSync on my mobile device.”
“Because cloud drivers tend to sync everything, do you run into problems were settings that should be device-specific, like window sizes, end up getting synced anyway?”
“hiya! due to export controls and sensitive data that I work with for my PhD I'm switching from notion to obsidian, since the only storage options i'm allowed to use are either local on my macbook or using onedrive. i have an android phone and would like to be able to access my vault on there as well (obsidian sync is also not allowed for same security reasons). onedrive syncing on android seems to be buggy, so the question is is there any way i can get this to work without using somethin”
“Ah I missed that you're looking for iOS. There is a Möbius Sync app, but I havent tried it personally so YMMV.”
“I use syncthing. Its a bit of a learning curve, first time I accidentally doubled my folders. But once you get the hang of it its actually fairly simple. I like that I can use it for pretty much anything, not just notes, and that it's completely free. And I can choose which devices sync which folders. So I can have sensitive stuff backed up only on secured devices but still be able to jot down a note on any connected one and pick it up elsewhere.”
“Never tried it myself, but check out the Self hosted LiveSync plugin. I've heard good results from people when paired with a CouchDB back end.”
“It maybe unnecessary, but I set my galaxy tab as the base git repo and sync obsidian on my phone (termux), tablet (termux) and laptop using git and ssh. It was more of a learning exercise for me and I ended up sticking with it. I don't know if termux is available on Apple mobile devices but there might be something similar”
“I’m curious how everyone here syncs their Obsidian vault across multiple devices in 2026. I’ve tried or looked into most of the common solutions: Manual file copy Git (including the mobile Git plugins) Syncthing Obsidian Sync Cloud storage providers None of them really feels like the right fit for my workflow. When I was on Android, I simply plugged my phone into my PC every evening and mirrored my vault manually. It was simple, fast, and I always knew both copies were identical. Since switching”
“agree to an extent! — but unfortunately it is a way to spend time in your vault, which is what they asked /genuine (i am currently stuck in the stage where i’ve been using obsidian for almost two years now and i’m still trying to figure out how i want to truly use it — and that’s okay with me, because i’m a perfectionist lmao)”
“I’ve been using obsidian for ~3-4 years now as a student in high school. I spent a lot of time in my vault as a student during the school year taking notes for classes. But now that it’s summer I also want Obsidian the place I am by default instead of apps like Reddit. So, for those who open obsidian by default when they are on their phone, what is it that you do in obsidian that makes you do this? I am aware that nothing is requiring me of using obsidian, if I use it to take notes for school th”