Obsidian: Sync Your Vaults with Git/GitHub
If you’re building a long-term notes repository, you may want to consider syncing it with git. In this video, we discuss how to set up Obsidian to sync between your devices automatically using git and GitHub.
Updated: December 2021
At the time of making this video, the main methods of syncing were all via the file system. Essentially, any file sync option worked great, whether it was git, Dropbox, iCloud, SyncThing, or something else.
Things have changed a little bit.
First, if you’re interested in git sync, there’s an excellent plugin called obsidian-git that handles all this magic for you — no more needing to hack around on the command line to get this to work (or, at least, not that much). If git sync is required for you, I recommend checking this plugin out.
Secondly, with the Obsidian mobile client now available, the integrated sync solutions are my preferred way to sync my vaults between all of my devices. My personal recommendation? Obsidian’s own sync service.
Why recommend a $96/yr service, you might be asking?
Two reasons:
- No thinking required – buy it, do some very light configuration in app, and it just works, whether you’re on Windows, Mac, iOS, or Android.
- End-to-end encryption (E2EE) – a vault can be like a journal — why would you put such private thoughts on a service that others could potentially access and use nefariously? In today’s world of low trust for handling data safely and privately, E2EE is one such feature I look to for apps that handle my personal data.
All that being said, you can get a similar setup going with git with a self-hosted server. That’s a bit too much work and maintenance for me to use and maintain, but since Obsidian is namely an interface layer for your plain-text notes, the sky is the limit!