Syncing Obsidian for Free

Syncing Obsidian vaults between devices, especially desktop and mobile.

iCloud

How to sync an Obsidian vault between MacOS desktop and iOS for free

Error: "iCloud disabled for Obsidian" on iOS/iPadOS?

#paste/glasp

Metadata

Title: iCloud disabled for Obsidian?
Tags: #iCloud, #ob, #iOS, #iPadOS
URL: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/icloud-disabled-for-obsidian/17395

Highlights & Notes

That error message only shows up when your iOS device has blocked Obsidian from using iCloud. You can change the setting from iOS’s system settings app > Your Apple ID > iCloud > Make sure that “iCloud Drive” and “Obsidian” are both turned on.

iCloud drive path for Obsidian on the Mac

Though the Obsidian vault on iCloud on the Mac appears to be under

iCloud Drive/Obsidian/<vault>

as shown in Finder:

The actual folder/directory of iCloud drive's Obsidian is actually here:

/Users/<username>/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/<vault>

This is the path that a diff tool such as Beyond Compare needs to point to in order to find files.

Dropbox

I initially set up my desktop Obsidian vaults on Dropbox, but haven't found any workable solution for syncing it to mobile devices, so I moved Obsidian to iCloud (Drive). It's been almost smooth sailing since, with the exception of sluggishness and constant indexing.

Update: Dropbox Obsidian vault on iOS: can't be done