Is it possible to sync the `.obsidian` folder?

[JoelAnderson-UU]

This may just have solved a whole bunch of problems that I've had with trying to do asynchronous sync with a bunch of colleagues. I love the way you can use Dropbox app authentication. It's really seamless.

But I'm wondering whether there's a possibility of also syncing the settings (in .obsidian). It's not a big deal, but I'd just like to know what the options are.

[zeakd]

Thanks for trying the plugin! It's still pretty early, so it's nice to see someone finding it. How did you come across it?

Syncing .obsidian is something I've been considering, but some files (like workspace.json) change so frequently that syncing them tends to cause more problems than it solves. What specifically are you looking to keep in sync?

[JoelAnderson-UU]

Mainly hotkeys, appearance, and which plugins are enabled. But I have to confess that I may have misunderstood the possibilities of this plugin: to sync two devices, does the Dropbox app need to be installed and authenticated? Was hoping to have a group of collaborators all use the same "custom app key" – ideally without even having to install and authenticate Dropbox on their device. But I suppose that was not really clear thinking on my part. Or do you see possibilities for a group of ten collaborators using this for (asynchronous) sharing?

[zeakd]

Syncing hotkeys, appearance, and plugin list shouldn't be a problem. I'll add an option to pick which config files to sync. Things like workspace.json will stay excluded since they change constantly across devices.

You don't need Dropbox installed, just sign in through the browser.

For team sharing, if everyone's using the same Dropbox account, it already works. Just use the same Vault ID on each device.

If each person has their own account, you'd need to create a custom Dropbox app with "Full Dropbox" scope so the plugin can see beyond its default sandbox. Then set up a shared folder on Dropbox and use that as your Vault ID. I'll update the custom app key setup guide with instructions for this.

Does this cover what you need? If so I'll get started on it.

[JoelAnderson-UU]

Hi zeakd,

Thanks for replying and explaining the possibilities of this plugin a bit further. I had sort of given up hope, but I've tried it out now, following your instructions, and I can get it to work as a way of collaborating:

1. User 1 and User 2 can be on different Dropbox accounts.
2. Both accounts have to include a folder that is shared via Dropbox.
3. Nobody has to have Dropbox installed on their computer as long as the account that contains the synced folder with the vault is open and logged in in a browser.
4. User 1 and user 2 install the obsidian-dropbox-sync plug-in using the custom app key
5. The vault ID needs to be the same.
6. The entire vault is synced.

If I'm working with other people, then I'm not sure I do want to share the .obsidian folder, because not everybody wants to use the same hot keys I do. But I think that can be determined on a device by device basis, right?

[JoelAnderson-UU]

One more question: is it possible to use this to sync only one folder in a vault, or does the vault name have to be the same. In other words, could I have three different vaults, all of which contained the same folder that's synced, or would I have to first create a vault entirely devoted to that folder and then include that as the vault name in the settings for obsidian-dropbox-sync? I hope I'm making sense here!

[zeakd]

Yeah, config sync will be per-device opt-in. Each device picks which config files to sync, so you can keep things like hotkeys local.

For partial sync, that's not supported yet. I'll add include patterns so you can limit sync to specific folders. That way you could have three vaults each containing the same folder name and only sync that folder.