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Obsidian.md - note taking app comes to iOS
Does anyone else use Obsidian? It’s a brilliant free note-taking application from desktop and the mobile app was just released.
It’s pitched as a second brain. It utilizes back linking, so links work both ways. You can tie notes together and also use tagging. I think it is inspired by the Zettelkasten method of note taking. Everything is in markdown which was easy enough to pick up. I think it’s targeted at creative and academic writing, but I’ve been using it for work related notes and drafting, in addition to some journaling. It’s kind of hard to describe but I’ve found it to be a personal game changer for keeping organized.
Now that it’s on mobile I’ve signed up for the paid sync service ($4 a month) but you can sync over iCloud for free.
Comments
Oddly enough, a thread on the Audiobus forum from a year ago was the first I ever heard of Obsidian. I started using it a few days later and have been using it to keep track of all my stuff ever since. Just got the mobile app the other day and have been using iCloud sync, which has been fast and flawless.
I've used this for work notes as well as musical explorations, capturing recommendations from this forum, etc. I've found it super-helpful for documenting things I forget if I only to do them every six months -- like exactly how to do the MIDI routing and filtering to keep all my stuff in sync for a particular configuration. Love it!
Interesting! I've been using Notion for about a year now, but I'm a sucker for all these creative/tracking tools. Does anyone know if you can sync over Dropbox since it's just using a flat file structure?
Yes! It is super flexible and customizable too. I’m a bit of a scatterbrain and even when I write things down, I rarely go back and reread. The linking features and quick search functionality really seem to work for me in making notes long-lasting.
Is there any advantage over Evernote?
That has a basic free plan and syncs across devices.
The Obsidian documentation indicates that it doesn't work very well over Dropbox. It seems to work fine over iCloud though since it has a more granular sync. I can type something on my Mac and it almost instantly updates the same note opened on my iPhone and iPad in real-time - same in the other direction.
Third party sync support
Many users asks why Obsidian for Mobile doesn't support their preferred sync solution. Here's a brief explanation on the current state of mobile sync support.
The thing about Obsidian that's different from other apps like 1Writer and iA Writer is that Obsidian works on top of a vault rather than a single note. Many of the core Obsidian functionality depend on the whole vault and all the files inside, such as the link auto-complete, image embedding, tag pane, backlinks, and all the cross-note functionality.
In contrast, most Markdown editing apps simply "open" a single note, let the user perform edits, then save the note back. Because of this, the OS and third party sync providers typically only provide an API for accessing/working with a single file, but not so much for working with a vault (folder of files with potentially subfolders).
For sync, a regular markdown editor app can simply implement the basic "download file when you open a selected file" and "upload the file back when you press save". Obsidian has to download the whole vault to be useful, and keep track of all the modified files (like for example, when you perform a file rename, we might update a bunch of other files for links that has changed due to the rename). On top of that, we need a way to monitor for changes through the sync solution to be able to update our internal caches when files change, to provide accurate links.
Keeping all that in sync with a third party sync provider would be quite tedious - and this is actually part of the reason why most sync providers don't make a proper sync client for mobile and you have to use a third party app (like DropSync or FolderSync) to do it. Unfortunately, such apps don't exist on iOS because of app sandboxing.
Ah, thanks for posting that wim -- still pouring through the features and some videos and hadn't found that quite yet.
It looks great but I really don’t like the paid sync option. I have tons of notes on popular cloud drives. Private notes on a private NextCloud instance, job notes on MS OneDrive and side project notes on Google Drive. I want to connect to these existing cloud storages. I would find it much better if they would charge for the app instead of a subscription for a proprietary cloud sync.
Is true, as @wim notes in the Spoiler, that the Obsidian mobile app doesn't support Dropbox (or anything, really, besides iCloud drive) for sync. I had been using Dropbox for sync and 1Writer as my mobile app prior to the release of the mobile app the other day. Sync was great, but of course 1Writer doesn't support most of the linking functionality which makes Obsidian so useful.
For @Carnbot, prior to Obsidian, I used Evernote for ~10 years. Biggest issue is that it's a proprietary solution, so your notes are locked into their format. My sense was that it was a dying platform -- the founders had all left the company and new development ground to a halt. Obsidian is pure markdown, and the files live locally, not out on some company's servers (unless, of course, you count iCloud as "some company's servers"). They've added the ability to link directly to PDFs, with 3rd party plug-ins that enable embedding specific sections in-line with my notes and commentary, which was important to me. Also built in support for MathJax -- LaTeX-like equation typesetting -- which as a scientist in my day job makes me very happy.
There's a bit of a Do-It-Yourself aspect of building up your note structure in Obsidian, which is both a bit more work and something that makes the resulting "vault", as they call it, much more personal.
To @krassmann, I'd say that one of the things I was trying to achieve was integrating my note system. I only have one brain, but like you, I was keep work notes in one app, personal notes in a variety of other places, and constant flipping between them. Keeping everything in one place makes much more sense to me. Linking and tagging provides a natural way to separate out work from personal.
Obsidian is quite powerful especially with some of the plugins, many of which are working on mobile too. it’s like the note-taking Drambo kinda 😄.. you can grep search notes and with plugins like dataview, you can create a data-base like query from your notes. Can mindmap right in it with a plug-in. There’s a plug-in called Dual that has integrated gpt2 and soon better. In not too long I can see have a real “conversation” with notes and getting relevant info back. I was in Evernote for about four hours a day for various projects and this makes it look like grandpa’s old dusty filing cabinet and a hell of a lot more stable since it’s just markdown of your notes in a folder.
Piggy-backing on this. I have a question about iCloud maybe someone can help with. I’ve been trying to sync Obsidian to ios and discovered an issue.
When I put any files and any folder in Finder on my Mac into the iCloud Drive folder within Finder, the folders will show up in my iOS iCloud drive folder in the files app, none of the files will though. So essentially I can’t sync my desktop markdown to the iOS app.
I was on the phone with Apple support yesterday and the support person first told me it’s because i need to put any file onto a Desktop or Documents folder only before dropping them into the iCloud folder for them to sync. And also that Desktop and Documents must be checked on in the iCloud settings on Mac. I thought that was only to sync those folders to iCloud??? Surely, I can drop a file from Downloads folder or from wherever into the iCloud Drive folder and it will go into iCloud, she said files had to come from specifically Desktop or Documents before going into the iCloud folder… then why do the folders I drop in from anywhere show up on iCloud.com and my iOS devices iCloud folder, but files don’t?
Then she said it was because my Mac is on the last Mojave release and maybe some functions of iCloud aren’t working like folders will sync and files won’t. I can’t update that because I’m still using some specific music software that won’t work anymore. So has anyone here seen ICloud functions break on older MacOS versions?
I’ve always really tried to avoid iTunes and iCloud because of this kind of thing.
I was going to use iCloud but could not install it on work PC. I am happy to pay a subscription to support development.
I have never used Evernote but from what I gather this is a much more flexible system. @Model10000 😂 maybe I like it so much because of its Drambo-Esque nature.
@bcrichards ha, yep and if you give it the same attention as Drambo I can I can imagine some cool stuff happening. Waiting for the “hey, this is Ben” Obsidian videos.
I can already see some cool ways to document what samples I've used and where I've used them...
I've been a desktop Obsidian user for ages and been looking forward to this app release for a while now.
The Obsidian team are extremely honest and open, give you practically full access (minus sync) for free, and I love how transparent their add-on pricing model is.
I am currently testing how well I can sync my vaults between desktop and android by hosting the files on Dropbox, and using the free version of Dropsync on my phone to sync files every few hours. I can adjust the sync interval to greater or lesser values depending on how much I end up making notes on my phone.
I installed the iPad app, but unfortunately the only vault sync options on iPad are either paid Obsidian sync ($4 per month) or via iCloud, which is no good for my own hybrid Android / Windows / iOS needs. I guess I'll stick to desktop + phone (via Dropbox/dropsync) for now and see how it goes.
@krassmann - you might be interested to know that, currently, I am using the free versions of Obsidian, Dropbox and Dropsync. So this is a completely free synced solution for desktop and android. So far so good!
I'm a pretty hardcore Notion user these days (having used both Evernote and OneNote for years, but I prefer Notion to either).
So my question is: what's the benefit of the reverse linking? I've never found the need to add links to my notes, and I make a ton of notes, for all sorts of different purposes. I must be missing something because I don't understand the benefit.
It makes the notes relational...say I make a note for a new track. I make a link to the notes for apps that I used. I make a link to notes for the samples I used.
Later, I could look at the note for Drambo, and see it’s backlinked to other notes and follow them directly. Likewise, I used this sample in X tracks.
This is a super simplified example. Not revelatory. But for writing where you need to connect ideas, you can directly link notes/ideas together for both quick navigation, and later discovery. With tagging, you could create a tagging or linking system to mark up your notes with extra contextual information. Rather than a strictly hierarchical organization system, your links allow you to connect notes in all sorts of ways.
I haven’t delved into it but you can query your vault and find all sorts of new connections.
For me, I’ve been using it as a productivity solution. I start with an automatically generated daily note, link to other notes/drafts that I’m working on, and those links are an immediate way to jump around to different projects for the day. I can make new to-do, and create a link to a new note that will capture my ideas for that task. It’s all very...fast, and brain like.
The Obsidian discord is a good place to ask questions and get help...
https://discord.gg/veuWUTm
Wait what??????? Hmmmmmmmm. I am going to check this out.
Direct AppStore link
Obsidian
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/obsidian-connected-notes/id1557175442
They have a 2nd app that doesn’t look half bad either - Dynalist
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dynalist/id1195392808
@bcrichards
So curious. Why do you have separate notes for 1 track. Why would you not have one note that contains all that. I’m very curious about the below and why this works for you?
“It makes the notes relational...say I make a note for a new track. I make a link to the notes for apps that I used. I make a link to notes for the samples I used.”
@onerez im not actually using it this way...yet. But the idea is you essentially make a database out of your thoughts.
You would have one note for a track. One note for Drambo. One note for a sample. You link between notes. As you go, you can add more links between notes. If I want I can link all relevant track notes to a section of my Drambo note. In my Drambo note I could have links to module notes, links to “tips”. It’s like a personal wiki essentially, but super super fast. Again, I’m just putting this in Audiobus terms
Here’s an example note.
One of the great things is you can create a shell note from another note. I’ll want to put content in a Thafknar, so I’ll just enclose it in [[brakcets]] now and I can jump right to it.
When I go to my Drambo note there’s nothing there, but I can see that there’s a back link. The links work both ways. I could start building out this note.
Then there’s graph view. This allows you to see the connections between notes.
@bcrichards that is very cool
@bcrichards Aha — good to see your thought process for that track!
@onerez There are apps like Roam that break things down to an atomic level, so each paragraph becomes a node that can be addressed, which is better or worse, depending on how you think about such things
Obsidian has this as well. Each paragraph, etc. is called a block, and can be linked to from other notes, and even embedded in other notes. Making the links is easy to do, with popup content browsing.
From the help vault:
What is a block
A "block" can be a paragraph, a blockquote, a list item, etc. In general, anything that has empty lines before and after is a block. ^dcf64c
Link to blocks
To link to a block in a specific file, first type
[[filenameto bring up a list of matched files. After selecting a file, type^and continue typing to search for blocks to link to.Once you hit enter, a link to that block will be generated for you, in the format similar to
[[filename#^dcf64c]], wheredcf64cis the block ID that was just generated for you.If you're not sure which file the block is in, another method is to type
[[^^and search for blocks in all files. This will search through all the blocks in your vault, so expect a bit of delay if your vault is large.For example, [[#^dcf64c]] is a link to a block above.
Embed or transclude blocks
Similar to [[Embed files|files embeds]], you can simply use
!in front of a block link to embed it.Here's an example:
![[#^dcf64c]]
Manual block IDs
If you want human readable block IDs, you can manually put
^your-idafter a block. Make sure there's at least one space if you're putting the ID at end of a line.To refer to complex blocks like tables, put the block ID on its own after the block, and make sure there is an empty line both before and after the block ID.
After you add the block ID manually, when you refer to that block,
your-idwill be used instead of a randomly generated block ID.Note that only letters, numbers, and dashes are allowed in manual block IDs.
Interoperability
Please be aware that block reference is not part of standard Markdown, but rather Obsidian's specific flavor of Markdown. That means these links will not work outside of Obsidian.
You can still find referenced block by searching for the block ID, although that's a rather manual process. The connection is not lost as long as you have software that can search in a folder.
Okay I took the Obsidian pill because I really love the back linking. Regarding the sync I think there is great approach for me using git and working copy on the iPad. I have to dig into that. Basically it’s no problem for me to run a git repo on my home server and I really want to have my private notes on my own server - not on the cloud. Did anyone here go this route?
@bcrichards Thank you very much. Just like your Drambo vids.. Excellent explanation!!!
@wim Ah cool, I didn't know that. I had a previous, prehistoric beta that didn't yet do this.
I currently use Craft for backlinking, but now that Obsidian is out for iOS/iPadOS, I'm keen to "wade" through the graph view, which Craft lacks.
@krassmann I can see the attraction of using Git, but jeez, that's a level of overhead I'm personally happy to do without
Since it's free I'm giving it a go and will use it for a few weeks to see if I can warm to the workflow.
I imported a bunch of notes and I've started organising them with links. One objection I have is that this is kinda like working with tags, which I was never keen on because it's more mental effort than just using a hierarchy.
Obviously this system works well for people who are wired that way, I'm just not sure I'm one of them. I like to have a three-ring binder approach where I can file a note in a specific location and be done with it. If I forget where it is I can search, this has never let me down.
But with back-linking you have to make an effort as you create the document to think of all the other documents that share some attributes, and this is actually really distracting because it takes you out of the writing. Maybe it's great for later, when you want to follow the connections, but at the time of writing it really takes you out of the zone.