Using Obsidian with Dropbox

If you’re using Obsidian then you may or may not be using their syncing service.

Access from multiple devices and a light form of backup are a couple of reasons for using the Obsidian syncing service. If you’re already using some form of cloud service for file syncing then you may as well already take advantage of that. All you need to do is make sure your Obsidian vault is within a synced folder for that service and all should be good.

With Dropbox this is especially easy to just add the vault folder within Dropbox so it’s synced automatically.

Beyond just the fact you can then access the files from other devices there are other advantages to using something like Dropbox.

The main reason I pick Dropbox specifically is because of it’s widespread use and relatively open nature when it comes to access from other services. This is especially true for things like automation services. If you want to tie in other services and tools into your system that uses Obsidian then one way to glue that together is to use Dropbox as a way to make your files accessible beyond a single device.

You can set up other apps to add or append to notes without having to use Obsidian app itself or using the main device you have the Obsidian vault on.

There are some caveats I’ve learned the hard way with using Dropbox.

If you use Daily Notes to auto create today’s note then you must make sure that Dropbox syncs first before opening Obsidian in the case you are also auto adding or generating them from elsewhere.

One main drawback too is that Dropbox doesn’t support emoji in file names, which is a really nice way of visually organising folders etc in the hierarchy.

You can though use Dropbox and Obsidian Sync together without much issue.

Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog