Obsidian is a popular choice for note-taking due to its flexibility and robustness. It is an essential tool for me at least to organize my thoughts and ideas.
The importance of digital notes is increasing. With this importance, its even more critical than ever to back up our notes, Especially with tools like obsidian.
GitHub is a reliable backup solution for many people due to its ease of use and reliability. However, manually backing up your vault with GitHub can be tedious and time-consuming.
Fortunately, the Obsidian Git plugin provides an easy solution to automate and simplify the backup process.
In this article, we’ll walk through the process of configuring the Obsidian Git plugin to back up your Obsidian vault using GitHub. By the end of this video, you’ll have an automated workflow for backing up your obsidian vault.
Follow the steps below to ensure the safety of your notes.
Installing Obsidian Git Community Plugin
First, you need to install Obsidian git from the community plugin store. Once you have enabled the plugin, you will see ‘Git is not ready’. That’s what we need to do now. Make Git ready.
Carefully read and follow all the steps outlined below.
Install Git on Your device
Git is a version control system that is used to keep track of changes to files. Download Git from the official site and install it on your device first.
Install Github Desktop App
From the official site, download the GitHub desktop app. It makes it easier for you to interact with Github by using GUI instead of the command line. We’ll use this to create a repository on our local device and publish it online.
Create a repository
Once you have signed in to the GitHub desktop app, create a new repository on your device. Name your repository, and choose a path.
Don’t publish the repository, yet.
Locate your recently created repository and find these two files
- .git folder
- .gitattributes file
If you can’t find the .git folder, follow these steps:
- Go to the three dots icon on the toolbar
- Go to ‘Options’> ‘View’> Toggle ‘show hidden files & folders’
Now, the .git folder will be visible on Explorer.
The next step is to move these two files and folders(not copy, but move) to your obsidian vault’s location.
After you have finished moving, you need to reopen the GitHub desktop app. You will see a ‘Can’t find Your Folder’ Window.
Click on locate and select the folder you moved the two files into i.e. your obsidian vault.
Once you do so, all of your files will be shown under changes. Commit the changes and publish the repository online.
Name your online repository. Choose whether you want to keep this repository ‘private’ or not. Hit publish.
Now, go to your GitHub account and you will see a recently published repository with all your files.
It’s all set now. If you reload your Obsidian vault, you will see the plugin ready.
Configuring Obsidian Git
There are a lot of settings you can choose from. Most of which, you can set to default.
‘Vault backup interval’ is what you need to change. By default, the value is set to O which means it will not be synced automatically. By writing a different value such as 5, it will back up your vault every 5 minutes.
Or you can also enable the option to backup the vault after every file change. There are more options that you can explore.
This is it. Now you should be able to automate the process of backing up your vault.
