Need a very reliable SYNC method across various devices including SETTINGS, CONFIGS and PLUGINS for Obsidian Notetaking app
Setting up self-hosted sync for my vault and could use a sanity check from people who've actually run this long-term. My setup: Desktop on Fedora (KDE) I have a sufficient always on machine for selfhosting Not a developer, but comfortable with Docker, SSH,…
Setting up self-hosted sync for my vault and could use a sanity check from people who've actually run this long-term. My setup: Desktop on Fedora (KDE) I have a sufficient always on machine for selfhosting Not a developer, but comfortable with Docker, SSH, and basic server admin Already self-host a few small things on this box, so it's not empty I don't wanna run any extra client on my device like syncthing or onedrive etc (excluding virtual machine) What I actually need: Vault (notes) synced reliably across devices - win latop, linux pc, android phone App config synced too - themes, snippets, installed plugins/settings. Not just the notes. Something I'm not babysitting constantly - no daily manual fixes Lower the resource usage the better Where I've landed so far: Was originally going to just do git plugin, remotly sync etc but that doesn't do much with settings and plugins, and realized it doesn't touch the .obsidian folder properly, so themes/plugins/hotkeys don't follow across devices - only the notes do. I am using Obsidian Git Plugin as a way to take backup on my private git repo. Appreciate any real-world experience over "just buy and use Obsidian Sync" - I know that exists, I'd rather self-host.
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heard the git plugin doesn't work reliable on the mobile phones... cuz it doesn't have terminal to do a git command away from termux or something. if you are using it on android too , can you teach me how.
Ahh. I missed the mobile part. I generally avoid doing any notes on my mobile because it's a pain in the ass to do formatting. I suppose if you're dead set on it, you could use the GitHub mobile app (assuming your pushing to GitHub) to view stuff.
Legit 😭
Tbh I found an answer I need to thank a person honestly! Omw to thank him after this. Literally only one person among this couple dozen comments told me about couchdb+live synced What worked was VPS: CouchDB behind Nginx, HTTPS via DNS + Let's Encrypt cert. Plugin: point LiveSync at that URL, set an encryption passphrase, realtime sync on desktop / periodic on mobile, Customization Sync for themes+plugins, Setup URI to add new devices fast. Self Hosted Free, encrypted, syncs everything - not just notes. Just set this up. Works very nice for now. Need to see how it performs long run.
My workflow requires me to constantly change my devices so it would be hassle to to install client on every new device . Like I literally use 7 - 10 new device in a month
Oh cool - I didn't know it could handle the .obsidian folder. I have this setup on my end - docker compose running the couchdb container, and getting a new device is as easy as downloading obsidian, sending the setup url from a working instance to myself, and then clicking like four setup buttons. Painless between ~4 laptops, a desktop, a server, and a phone
damn makes sense
What about the configs, themes, settings and plugin transfer?
What do you mean? On the first client you run the first sync that will copy everything on the storage, then you will use an encrypted string to configure the same plugin on another device, importing the plugin settings and then all the rest of the data
Sure, even tho I am using couchdb + livesyncplugin now. I'll try this way too.. atleast for giving feedback. This might actually help people with fixed devices. My case is different, I constantly change devices. But still I'll give it a try and give an update
Thank you. I mean each ways has its own merit.
I use git via command line instead of the git plugin; never touched the plugin as I didn't know it existed. Somewhere inside the git repo you're currently using is likely a file called .gitignore. I'm guessing you'll find the .obsidian file named in there. Generally, this file tells git to ignore anything inside of it, so removing .obsidian from it should allow you to sync the config folder. When I make changes to the notes repo, I push it to git. When I change devices, I just run git pull in the repo and everything is updated. Obsidian should pull and install any new plugins as long as you have them enabled. If your worried about having to manually run git, just setup a cron job to run a git pull so it's always looking for the newest stuff on your devices.
Came here to say this. I have almost the same (tinkerer) profile as OP, with almost the same setup (but Debian KDE instead of Fedora). And I'm amazed at how Syncthing syncs Obsidian (notes, plugins, settings, everything) across Debian, macOS, Windows and Android.
i have this exact config works flawlessly just 1 thing - real time sync is annoying ( bcos of pop up notifications ) use sync at start and stop and on save
Use ansible to bootstrap?
whats the reason behind not wanting another client running in background? on desktop who cares and for laptops etc. the energy used by syncthing and tailscale for instance is very low
"No extra client on the device". That single line rules out most options that would actually do everything you want, so it's worth deciding whether that's a hard rule or just a preference? Something has to move the files. On the desktops that can be a mount or a cron'd script, but on Android nothing syncs a folder without a process running to do it. That isn't a limitation of any one tool, it's just how the phone works. WebDAV or Nextcloud on your box, paired with the Remotely Save plugin, is the only answer I can come up with. That plugin lives inside Obsidian, not as a separate app, and I'm pretty sure it can carry config and plugins too, so it's about the closest thing to your "no extra client" rule while still syncing settings. If it were mine I'd self-host Nextcloud and use Remotely Save, purely because it's the one setup where the phone doesn't need a second app babysitting it.
If you can self-host a little bit and spin up an S3 compatible storage container you can use the plugin called Remotely Save It syncs note, plugin, theme, everything you need even on mobile app If you don't want self-host the S3 storage you can find several online providers for free Pros against LiveSync Plugin: easier setup, low resources Cons: no live mode (you need to save a note to sync it, it has no true real-time sync) https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/remotely-save
May be this? Will appreciate the feedback https://alishercraft.dev/blog/howto-save-on-obsidian-sync
Self-hosted LiveSync (community plugin) is the answer to your exact requirement — it syncs the entire vault including the .obsidian folder, so plugins, themes, hotkeys, snippets all follow. Stack: CouchDB in Docker on your always-on box + the Self-hosted LiveSync plugin on desktop/laptop/Android. Real-time via long-poll, conflict handling is genuinely good, works fine on flaky mobile networks. Docker compose is ~15 lines. Put CouchDB behind Caddy or Traefik with a Let's Encrypt cert so Obsidian on Android can hit it over HTTPS (Android WebView rejects self-signed). RAM footprint on my box is ~120MB idle. Gotchas worth knowing before you start: Turn on end-to-end encryption in the plugin settings BEFORE first sync. Retrofitting later is painful. Set chunk size to 100–500. Too small = huge doc count, too big = mobile timeouts. Exclude workspace.json from sync or your window layouts fight each other across devices. There's a setting for it. Use Live Sync mode, not Periodic, if you want actual real-time. Do NOT try to put the .obsidian folder in git — plugin binaries and cache files will corrupt history within a week. LiveSync was built for exactly this.
You said no to syncthing but... I'm still gonna recommend it because you can run it on Docker. The problem would be Android and Windows because most sync things will need you to install some sort of client on your phone and Windows because Android as far as I know, does not run Docker (at least not officially supported by Docker) and for Windows it adds lot of unnecessary overhead. But if your main goal is just to have Obsidian in sync, you could consider hosting Obsidian in Docker. There is docker containers for that too so you would then just access it via your browser instead of using any sort of extra client.
fast-note-sync-service
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