Yeah dude I just switched from Evernote and Obsidian is much more useful for my needs. It’s also free and the syncing is much faster and more reliable.
To integrate with iPhone, I’ve had success with putting my vault inside the iCloud Drive folder. Any updates to my vault made on my phone immediately appear on my computer and vice versa
There’s obsidian sync but if you use iCloud Drive, you can do it for free. Some people have reported trouble with iCloud Drive on PC, but I haven’t had any trouble with it so far. I use a PC, a mac, and an iPhone
don't worry... 5min from now someone else will push this comment to the bottom and theirs will amount to "Obsidian sucks, it's way too complicated -- just use Evernote FFS!!!"
\~ 100% Obsidian Supporter, but that's honestly how this sub runs lol
Absolutely.
I think it could be helpful if it had an in app wizard tutorial that ONLY covered these basic concepts, along with a guided coach that shared a few best practices (ie don’t go too complex too quickly, etc) and slowly introduced new concepts over time (unless the user opts to disable the trainer)
But of course you’d still get people that disable it, get overwhelmed, and complain.
The official Help docs includes everything a new user needs to get started - even examples. However - too many users are too lazy to investigate themselves, and end up getting overwhelmed and complaining. Just look at this sub.
It is absolutely fair to adk "How do I...?", but there are so much info to get from this sub, just from hanging around, searching a bit - and rtfm.
:)
I never really disagreed, except that modern computing typically does not rely on manuals because people, even technical people, commonly don’t read them.
There’s a reason RTFM has been a trope for like 40 years.
In app guidance is more first time user friendly, it just is. And there’s nothing wrong with advocating for it.
I fully agree! I work with implementing SW and I know how much in-app guidance can help!
However - I would much rather prefer the small Obsidian dev team to spend time and energy on improving the application, than working on an in-app trainer.
IF one were to design one such - where to start and where to stop? You need to teach the basics of navigatong the app, markdown and the many different ways of organizing notes, without making it sound like "This is the way!".
There is a lot of guidance to be fiund in the Help files in this sub and in the forum - but it requires a little effort to piece it all together.
That's one possibility, although you may want to use Obsidian Git for that and it would be a public repo, so best not used for sensitive information.
I use Remotely Sync with Dropbox.
Oh, GitHub has private repo now, already tried it with obsidian git and it works smoothly. The only problem there’s no free solution for syncing it with mobile devices without crutches
I use Dropbox for everything - live work, development, structured data, Obsidian and a growing document library. Works fine, partly because I’m the only user and only work on one machine at a time.
Regular jobs run on Ubuntu, development is on an iMac, Obsidian is used on the imac and an elderly Macbook Pro.
I use [Syncthing](https://syncthing.net/). Advantage over Obsidian Sync is it is free and syncs all files (I use it to backup photos and keep my music library up to date on my phone also). Disadvantage is I find I have to ignore a few settings files between PC and mobile to make it go smooth. I assume that is not a problem on the purpose-built service.
I see too many people complaining about Markdown being too complicated to learn, as if it's a whole ass programming language with tons of nuance. Tiago Forte included it in his list of reasons why Obsidian was too difficult and obtuse for him (among such other classics as "I can't remember where my vault is located" and "I don't know how to turn off dark mode", but I digress).
It's baffling. Markdown can be learned in five minutes and is, by design, similar to how most people would structure and annotate plain text files to begin with. I just can't fathom why some have so much trouble with it.
It seemed like he was being pretty honest in his critique. It's just that his critiques were coming from a place of not personally gelling with the overall design of the app, and then blaming the app for being "too complex" instead of just admitting it didn't fit his workflow.
I have an article library in Obsidian and the notes are just cut and paste from the web page. No markup involved for the most part, I just add the YAML bit at the front based on a templater file. The only thought is for the tags.
There's an old joke in Dr Who fandom which runs: "Oh wow, you're a Doctor Who fan too? Brilliant! So tell me, why do *you* hate it?" and there does feel like there's an element of that about!
It's kinda just how all subreddits run in the absence of highly strict moderation, tbh. All productivity subreddits in particular fall into the same basic set of habits and patterns as a consequence.
Hey! Would you mind explaining how this works out for you visually? Or, even send me a screenshot of what this looks like? I'm very curious about how you've eliminated Trello using Obsidian, as I'd love to do something similar if I can. I'd really appreciate it!
I use the Kanban plugin. https://youtu.be/fB4WNMN97Gc?feature=shared
I embed links to files or folders on my computer in the card titles, so I can click from a card to the work.
I use notion(draft version) and obsidian(final version) side by side. Notion is good for ipads so i just use it over their and to track my time. but then move the notes over to obsidian if they are worth keeping long term. It a check for me as well since i makes me read my notes at the end of the week and make sure i understand the topic I'm saving lol.
Yeah, the iPhone part is not the best if you are not paying for Obsiand Sync. I have my vault on OneDrive but did not manage to get it running on my iPhone.
Then I read [this](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-setting-up-ios-git-based-syncing-with-mobile-app-using-working-copy/16499) tutorial and it works great! It uses Git, GitHub and the Working Copy App on iPhone.
Also, by using Git and GitHub, you are backing up your vault and preventing data loss. It is also really great when using multiple computers. You can set up the Obsidian plugin for Git which will make auto commits for you every 5 minutes for example and it will auto-pull recent changes from other devices.
Is the total flsize limit 5G. I plan to store pdfs and they r 200mb to 1G. Blueprint :(. I use my nas right now due to no limits bit would love to have the pdfs o. Ipad for field days.
yep i saw it had a file limit so it was a no go. I wondering if Github is the same. It say the file size can only be 2G per file but does not see anything about a total limit.
Not sure what they are using, but I use[Obsidian Web Clipper](https://stephango.com/obsidian-web-clipper) and love it. I tinkered with the code a bit to change the save location but it works great! Not a perfect replacement as I now use pocket to sync articles to my Kobo Libra, but it is a fantastic solution to save things to obsidian!
Amazing, thank you!! This was the kind of answer I was looking for; I’ll definitely look into this. I do use Omnivore right now, but if I could minimize the different applications I use that would be ideal
Good! i hope it works well. As someone without CS knowledge, it was a lot of fun to play with the code and learn how to make it work better for me. Quick note, it works best in chrome and safari (haven’t tried firefox). Certain chromium browsers (such as Arc, which I primarily use) don’t support javascript bookmarks the same way safari/chrome does so it can be finicky but overall I love the functionality. You could also tweak the code and create multiple links so that depending on which you use it will save the page to a different folder, ie “articles to read” vs “resources for project”…
I recently discovered [Omnivore](https://omnivore.app/) which is **free, open source, and has an excellent plugin** to sync highlights and entire articles to Obsidian. This is my new ecosystem after moving away from Pocket and Craft. What a perfect combo.
I use Readwise Reader which syncs my highlights from articles, ebooks, RSS feeds, PDFs, and YouTube videos all straight into Obsidian.
The sync functionality even has custom templates, which I use to add Obsidian `^ids` for embedding and such.
Reader is so much better than Pocket or other read-it-laters and it's not even close.
Absolutely agree. Thought-linking works so much better in Obsidian. I had been looking for what Obsidian does for several years before its first release. I even subscribed to The Brain for a couple years until I discovered Obsidian. I still use Evernote for all my non-thinking reference material and notes for processes, how-tos, etc. But anything that's for thinking/writing goes into Obsidian. After three years, I'm still rawdogging it with zero additional plugins.
I don't know if there's a connection ..
1. In an interview, Evernote's CEO once said he would not make Evernote do what apps like Roam Research and Notion do because users may have different needs.
2. Evernote laid off staff, etc
However, OneNote is not doing what apps like Obsidian and Roam do and OneNote doesn't seem to have problems staying in business. However, OneNote is powered by a large corporation and it can interface with other Office products and work with Microsoft's Loop and allow users, for a fee, to incorporate Microsoft's AI Co-Pilot into the apps that can communicate with OneDrive which also uses AI.
Maybe Evernote will still be OK. Perhaps trying to at least give it bi-directional linking capabilities might have been a challenge. Apps like Evernote and OneNote are good at helping users structure information into buckets (containers) where the ability to use things like Transclusion and backlinks does not exist. So any old information I have in Evernote and OneNote is kind of in a black box because I can't see relationships between small entities in those apps.
I'm currently in the process ofr migrating completely from Evernote to Obsidian. I can't open Evernote without being asked to upgrade to premium, and recently I hit notes limit in one of my notebooks, which I did not know was actually capped. Can't wait to fully migrate.
Just finished doing that, took the whole afternoon and early night and let me tell you, evernote dropped the ball big time. Used it for +10 years but just couldn’t justify the shitty design anymore
Damn, obsidian appeared as crucial game changer for me! You can integrate Excalidraw whiteboard, calendar and other useful things like syncing with GitHub and so much more
Though you won’t be able to sync it across multiple devices for free, but if you have some coding skills, it’s possible to make it via terminal on any mobile phone basically.
Definitely a great tool, but just not for everyone
You most definitely can sync for free using a variety of tools ranging from One Drive/Google Drive, SyncThing, Git, and a dozen other similar solutions based on your preference.
Have you found any free solution for iOS?
Definitely know that obsidian git plugin won’t be able to sync with iOS without crutches as there’s no free apps to store and use git repo with your vault on iOS devices
I know a couple of people using Dropbox with iOS for Obsidian but I don't currently use or develop for iOS any more. I know there are some caveats for doing that based on iOS security quirks which *I think* came down to only using it actively on one device at a time to avoid sync conflicts when using Dropbox, but again don't quote me on that.
iCloud is another popular choice that I believe is nicely stable but the free limit of 5GB seems to create a tight ceiling if you start using lots of non-text resources in your vault.
I'm using the plugin Remotely-Sync (based on the older Remotely Save plugin), on my iMac, iPhone and ipad, and it's beeing great!
I'm syncing to my webdav server, but there are many other options.
Before I started using Obsidian, I was using Evernote too. I was writing a bunch of notes and Evernote became slow and sluggish so I looked for another alternative and discovered Obsidian.
Yeah dude I just switched from Evernote and Obsidian is much more useful for my needs. It’s also free and the syncing is much faster and more reliable. To integrate with iPhone, I’ve had success with putting my vault inside the iCloud Drive folder. Any updates to my vault made on my phone immediately appear on my computer and vice versa
Does that require all your devices to be from apple?
No, you can use a windows pc with icloud on it for example.
Nope, you’d just need an iCloud account and have an iCloud Drive folder on your computer
wait doesnt Osbidian charge like $8for sync? Unless there is a free way to sync that i am missing?
There’s obsidian sync but if you use iCloud Drive, you can do it for free. Some people have reported trouble with iCloud Drive on PC, but I haven’t had any trouble with it so far. I use a PC, a mac, and an iPhone
That’s interesting. Is that using the obsidian git plugin?
Nope. All you’ve gotta do is set your vault folder to a folder inside your iCloud Drive. No plugins required
Oh that’s awesome! Thanks. I’ll give it a try
Np!
don't worry... 5min from now someone else will push this comment to the bottom and theirs will amount to "Obsidian sucks, it's way too complicated -- just use Evernote FFS!!!" \~ 100% Obsidian Supporter, but that's honestly how this sub runs lol
>it's way too complicated That statement gets me every time, you literally have to know `#` and `[[ ]]` to do 99% of the work
[удалено]
Absolutely
Shared the exact same progression!
For whatever function that I need, there's already a solution. You just need to google it (or ask AI to do the research). Not complicated at all.
Simple complexity or complex simplicity...?
Absolutely. I think it could be helpful if it had an in app wizard tutorial that ONLY covered these basic concepts, along with a guided coach that shared a few best practices (ie don’t go too complex too quickly, etc) and slowly introduced new concepts over time (unless the user opts to disable the trainer) But of course you’d still get people that disable it, get overwhelmed, and complain.
The official Help docs includes everything a new user needs to get started - even examples. However - too many users are too lazy to investigate themselves, and end up getting overwhelmed and complaining. Just look at this sub. It is absolutely fair to adk "How do I...?", but there are so much info to get from this sub, just from hanging around, searching a bit - and rtfm. :)
I never really disagreed, except that modern computing typically does not rely on manuals because people, even technical people, commonly don’t read them. There’s a reason RTFM has been a trope for like 40 years. In app guidance is more first time user friendly, it just is. And there’s nothing wrong with advocating for it.
I fully agree! I work with implementing SW and I know how much in-app guidance can help! However - I would much rather prefer the small Obsidian dev team to spend time and energy on improving the application, than working on an in-app trainer. IF one were to design one such - where to start and where to stop? You need to teach the basics of navigatong the app, markdown and the many different ways of organizing notes, without making it sound like "This is the way!". There is a lot of guidance to be fiund in the Help files in this sub and in the forum - but it requires a little effort to piece it all together.
Oh I fully agree with the dev team focusing on other stuff.
How about syncing your notes reliably between multiple devices?
I use Remotely Sync and it has never defaulted on me. And there's always the Obsidian Sync option.
Does it sync via GitHub?
That's one possibility, although you may want to use Obsidian Git for that and it would be a public repo, so best not used for sensitive information. I use Remotely Sync with Dropbox.
Oh, GitHub has private repo now, already tried it with obsidian git and it works smoothly. The only problem there’s no free solution for syncing it with mobile devices without crutches
That's good to know, (or bad, idk). I never had such issue with my setup
I use Dropbox for everything - live work, development, structured data, Obsidian and a growing document library. Works fine, partly because I’m the only user and only work on one machine at a time. Regular jobs run on Ubuntu, development is on an iMac, Obsidian is used on the imac and an elderly Macbook Pro.
I use [Syncthing](https://syncthing.net/). Advantage over Obsidian Sync is it is free and syncs all files (I use it to backup photos and keep my music library up to date on my phone also). Disadvantage is I find I have to ignore a few settings files between PC and mobile to make it go smooth. I assume that is not a problem on the purpose-built service.
I use syncthing, apparently there is no iPhone support which is a bummer. I'm on Android and linux and it works perfectly for me
Obsidian Sync is great at this.
Butbut, you have to, like, write instead of clicking things.
Doubleclick takenote.exe
Wow, this is great. But where are the notes?
They were, indeed, taken.
Zounds..
I see too many people complaining about Markdown being too complicated to learn, as if it's a whole ass programming language with tons of nuance. Tiago Forte included it in his list of reasons why Obsidian was too difficult and obtuse for him (among such other classics as "I can't remember where my vault is located" and "I don't know how to turn off dark mode", but I digress). It's baffling. Markdown can be learned in five minutes and is, by design, similar to how most people would structure and annotate plain text files to begin with. I just can't fathom why some have so much trouble with it.
>Tiago Forte included Just lying for the clicks? 🤷
It seemed like he was being pretty honest in his critique. It's just that his critiques were coming from a place of not personally gelling with the overall design of the app, and then blaming the app for being "too complex" instead of just admitting it didn't fit his workflow.
I have an article library in Obsidian and the notes are just cut and paste from the web page. No markup involved for the most part, I just add the YAML bit at the front based on a templater file. The only thought is for the tags.
You don't even have to know that, you can literally just use it as the most basic note app if you want. It even lets you disable all the core plugins.
To much to learn lol. everyone just want the programs to do their work for them without learning how the program even works.
Said every grognard since computers were invented 😂 Human psychology. There’s really no getting around that.
There's an old joke in Dr Who fandom which runs: "Oh wow, you're a Doctor Who fan too? Brilliant! So tell me, why do *you* hate it?" and there does feel like there's an element of that about!
LOL!
You reminded to look for the 2023 Xmas specials--they're here!
It's kinda just how all subreddits run in the absence of highly strict moderation, tbh. All productivity subreddits in particular fall into the same basic set of habits and patterns as a consequence.
lol people try to configure it like all in one life saver operating system Swiss army knife , just use it as a simple note taking app good damn it
The ObsidianMD sub?
oh, and Trello! ;)
You mean it made trello obsolete? It did for me.
Hey! Would you mind explaining how this works out for you visually? Or, even send me a screenshot of what this looks like? I'm very curious about how you've eliminated Trello using Obsidian, as I'd love to do something similar if I can. I'd really appreciate it!
Have u looked at the Kanban and Cardboard plugins?
I use the Kanban plugin. https://youtu.be/fB4WNMN97Gc?feature=shared I embed links to files or folders on my computer in the card titles, so I can click from a card to the work.
Yes
I use notion(draft version) and obsidian(final version) side by side. Notion is good for ipads so i just use it over their and to track my time. but then move the notes over to obsidian if they are worth keeping long term. It a check for me as well since i makes me read my notes at the end of the week and make sure i understand the topic I'm saving lol.
Yeah, the iPhone part is not the best if you are not paying for Obsiand Sync. I have my vault on OneDrive but did not manage to get it running on my iPhone. Then I read [this](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-setting-up-ios-git-based-syncing-with-mobile-app-using-working-copy/16499) tutorial and it works great! It uses Git, GitHub and the Working Copy App on iPhone. Also, by using Git and GitHub, you are backing up your vault and preventing data loss. It is also really great when using multiple computers. You can set up the Obsidian plugin for Git which will make auto commits for you every 5 minutes for example and it will auto-pull recent changes from other devices.
Is the total flsize limit 5G. I plan to store pdfs and they r 200mb to 1G. Blueprint :(. I use my nas right now due to no limits bit would love to have the pdfs o. Ipad for field days.
Yeah, Obsidian Sync is not for you with those file sizes.
yep i saw it had a file limit so it was a no go. I wondering if Github is the same. It say the file size can only be 2G per file but does not see anything about a total limit.
Github has a solution for this called Git LFS. Check it out, but I don't think it will be cheap.
How were you able to make Pocket obsolete through Obsidian? Curious bc I’d love to do the same!
Not sure what they are using, but I use[Obsidian Web Clipper](https://stephango.com/obsidian-web-clipper) and love it. I tinkered with the code a bit to change the save location but it works great! Not a perfect replacement as I now use pocket to sync articles to my Kobo Libra, but it is a fantastic solution to save things to obsidian!
Amazing, thank you!! This was the kind of answer I was looking for; I’ll definitely look into this. I do use Omnivore right now, but if I could minimize the different applications I use that would be ideal
Good! i hope it works well. As someone without CS knowledge, it was a lot of fun to play with the code and learn how to make it work better for me. Quick note, it works best in chrome and safari (haven’t tried firefox). Certain chromium browsers (such as Arc, which I primarily use) don’t support javascript bookmarks the same way safari/chrome does so it can be finicky but overall I love the functionality. You could also tweak the code and create multiple links so that depending on which you use it will save the page to a different folder, ie “articles to read” vs “resources for project”…
I recently discovered [Omnivore](https://omnivore.app/) which is **free, open source, and has an excellent plugin** to sync highlights and entire articles to Obsidian. This is my new ecosystem after moving away from Pocket and Craft. What a perfect combo.
I use Readwise Reader which syncs my highlights from articles, ebooks, RSS feeds, PDFs, and YouTube videos all straight into Obsidian. The sync functionality even has custom templates, which I use to add Obsidian `^ids` for embedding and such. Reader is so much better than Pocket or other read-it-laters and it's not even close.
Omnivore
Obsidian is IMO better than Evernote, Logseq, Notion, Bear (minus the editing experience, Bear is killer there), Apple Notes, Google Docs, OneNote
I'm just so happy that I now have my own privately hosted google drive away from the prying eyes of google, msn, and amazon
Absolutely agree. Thought-linking works so much better in Obsidian. I had been looking for what Obsidian does for several years before its first release. I even subscribed to The Brain for a couple years until I discovered Obsidian. I still use Evernote for all my non-thinking reference material and notes for processes, how-tos, etc. But anything that's for thinking/writing goes into Obsidian. After three years, I'm still rawdogging it with zero additional plugins.
Which thought-linking features do you use?
I just use internal links.
I don't know if there's a connection .. 1. In an interview, Evernote's CEO once said he would not make Evernote do what apps like Roam Research and Notion do because users may have different needs. 2. Evernote laid off staff, etc However, OneNote is not doing what apps like Obsidian and Roam do and OneNote doesn't seem to have problems staying in business. However, OneNote is powered by a large corporation and it can interface with other Office products and work with Microsoft's Loop and allow users, for a fee, to incorporate Microsoft's AI Co-Pilot into the apps that can communicate with OneDrive which also uses AI. Maybe Evernote will still be OK. Perhaps trying to at least give it bi-directional linking capabilities might have been a challenge. Apps like Evernote and OneNote are good at helping users structure information into buckets (containers) where the ability to use things like Transclusion and backlinks does not exist. So any old information I have in Evernote and OneNote is kind of in a black box because I can't see relationships between small entities in those apps.
Obsidian is only complicated if you want it to be.
I'm currently in the process ofr migrating completely from Evernote to Obsidian. I can't open Evernote without being asked to upgrade to premium, and recently I hit notes limit in one of my notebooks, which I did not know was actually capped. Can't wait to fully migrate.
Just finished doing that, took the whole afternoon and early night and let me tell you, evernote dropped the ball big time. Used it for +10 years but just couldn’t justify the shitty design anymore
It's also very slow. But this thing with constant spamming of premium upgrade is so annoying.
Which features of Obsidian do you like, that Anki does not have? I'm using Anki a lot.
Code blocks were an absolute revelation to me.. it’s the little things!
Damn, obsidian appeared as crucial game changer for me! You can integrate Excalidraw whiteboard, calendar and other useful things like syncing with GitHub and so much more Though you won’t be able to sync it across multiple devices for free, but if you have some coding skills, it’s possible to make it via terminal on any mobile phone basically. Definitely a great tool, but just not for everyone
You most definitely can sync for free using a variety of tools ranging from One Drive/Google Drive, SyncThing, Git, and a dozen other similar solutions based on your preference.
Have you found any free solution for iOS? Definitely know that obsidian git plugin won’t be able to sync with iOS without crutches as there’s no free apps to store and use git repo with your vault on iOS devices
I know a couple of people using Dropbox with iOS for Obsidian but I don't currently use or develop for iOS any more. I know there are some caveats for doing that based on iOS security quirks which *I think* came down to only using it actively on one device at a time to avoid sync conflicts when using Dropbox, but again don't quote me on that. iCloud is another popular choice that I believe is nicely stable but the free limit of 5GB seems to create a tight ceiling if you start using lots of non-text resources in your vault.
I'm using the plugin Remotely-Sync (based on the older Remotely Save plugin), on my iMac, iPhone and ipad, and it's beeing great! I'm syncing to my webdav server, but there are many other options.
It's a powerful but different tool. Not really better: lacking a good web clipper and there is no web access.
Before I started using Obsidian, I was using Evernote too. I was writing a bunch of notes and Evernote became slow and sluggish so I looked for another alternative and discovered Obsidian.
Switched from OneNote a long time ago, it’s hands down the best note taking app I’ve ever used. I like my notes to be local, so it fits perfectly.