The Obsidian plugin
The Archivist’s plugin for Obsidian keeps a vault’s notes in your archive. Install it, choose Connect, approve it in your browser, and your notes sync in the background from then on, on desktop and mobile.
It only reads your vault. It never changes, moves or deletes a note.
Installing it
Section titled “Installing it”The plugin isn’t in Obsidian’s community plugins list yet. Until it is, install it with BRAT, a community plugin for installing plugins in testing:
- Install and enable BRAT from Obsidian’s community plugins.
- In BRAT, add the beta plugin
code-ministry-ltd/the-archivist-obsidian. - Enable The Archivist under community plugins.
It needs Obsidian 1.11.4 or later. Its source is at github.com/code-ministry-ltd/the-archivist-obsidian.
Connecting it
Section titled “Connecting it”In the plugin’s settings, choose Connect. Your browser opens The Archivist with “Connect Obsidian on
The plugin can then add, update and remove notes in its vault’s folder in your archive. It can’t read or search your archive. Its sign-in is kept on this device, never in the vault, so it doesn’t travel with Obsidian Sync, iCloud or git.
What it syncs
Section titled “What it syncs”Every Markdown note in the vault, except:
- Obsidian’s settings folder, the trash, and your attachment folder if you’ve set one;
- folders and patterns you list under Leave out, such as
PrivateorJournal/**/drafts; - notes over 10 MB, which are listed in the plugin’s settings.
Attachments, PDFs and images aren’t synced. To bring PDFs and other files in, use Archivist Sync on the folder that holds them.
Each vault goes into one folder in your archive, named obsidian- and the vault’s name, such as obsidian-personal, unless you change it under Folder in your archive.
When it syncs
Section titled “When it syncs”- when Obsidian starts;
- about 2 minutes after you stop editing;
- every 15 minutes as a backstop, which you can change to 5 or 60 minutes or turn off, under Also sync every;
- when you run the command The Archivist: Sync now.
Deleting notes
Section titled “Deleting notes”A note you delete in Obsidian is removed from your archive at the next sync. If a sync would remove more than 20 notes and more than a quarter of the folder, the plugin stops and asks first, in case the vault hasn’t finished loading or a folder is missing.
More than one device
Section titled “More than one device”One device syncs each vault. Connecting a second device for the same vault disconnects the first, which then offers to sync from that device instead.
If you already sync this vault another way
Section titled “If you already sync this vault another way”If the vault is already in your archive under another name, such as from the command-line tool, set Folder in your archive to that name before the first sync. Otherwise the plugin starts a new folder, and the vault’s notes are in your archive twice.
Disconnecting
Section titled “Disconnecting”Disconnect in the plugin’s settings revokes its sign-in. You can also revoke it in The Archivist under Settings → Access tokens. The notes it synced stay in your archive.