Obsidian Sync is overpriced and doesn’t work. But there is a solution.
Obsidian is one of the best knowledge management apps, but it has a few missing pieces. Syncing between devices is one such piece.
I recently gave up on Evernote, and switched to Obsidian for my knowledge-management needs. A very important feature, kind of missing from Obsidian is data sync across devices.
Obsidian sync at $96/year (or $10/month), is at best, a waste of money.
Disclaimer:
This article is based on my personal experience. Since there are too many variables involved, if Obsidian’s sync works for you, then Godspeed. It didn’t work for me. I am assuming others face the same problems as I did. I am writing this to share how I solved my problem, and hoping someone can tell me how to improve on it.
My environment: Primary setup on macOS. Mobile on Android
Some of the problems:
- I tried everything possible, but couldn’t get audio files to sync to the desktop, from the phone.
- Plugins didn’t copy to the phone
- None of the configurations copied form the desktop to the phone
- Phone did not see my custom javascript files, which I use with dataviewjs
- And the list just goes on….
It just didn’t work:
I keep my data on one cloud service, and keep a mirror on another. I don’t trust cloud storage services. They can lock you out whenever they like. More about that, some other time.
I tried everything from Dropbox to box.com. They all insist on doing this crazy offline/online gimmickry, which makes it impossible for other apps to access data on the phone. As a result Obsidian, or other editors, can’t see my files that are sitting on a cloud service app on the phone. Which creates the need for the Obsidian Sync overpriced (it is my opinion) subscription
Solution: I used an old-fashioned file sync app on the phone, to sync an actual folder with the could storage. There are quite a few such apps on Google Play. I used FolderSync, and it did what I needed. Within 5 minutes, everything was working like a charm.
Now I have an exact replica of my Obsidian vaults on both devices — synced in, almost, real time. For free.
Keeping setups unique:
- Problem: How to keep device specific settings, from syncing back to other copies.
- Solution: FolderSync lets you choose any files, or folders, to exclude from syncing.
Conclusion:
Obsidian Sync is a very overpriced service, that doesn’t work. Not worth the money or effort.
FolderSync (and other similar apps) costs a nominal one-time payment (approx. $4). NO MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTIONS.
Another $10/month saved from my subscription list.
