> There is so much wankery around Obsidian, it's so cringleworthty. Obsidian is a nice/fancy editor for markdown files. That's all it is really. People have created so many addons to bolt so much stuff onto it, but that's all it is at its core. You can search your notes, you can tag them.

It is a simple markdown editor yes but it's the addons that make it so different. There's tons and tons of markdown notetaking apps, but this one just hit the right balance for me. End to End encryption, self-hosted livesync (I can see myself typing from another client), good mobile support, fast searching. Self-hosting is a must-have for me, even with end to end encryption.

The one thing I miss is a bit more security on Android (it would be great if the app offered an option to hide its files from other apps by locating them in the app's private storage area). And for it to start quicker, it has to load a whole browser on every open because it's an electron app even on mobile.

But overall it's great for me. Not earth-shattering but it just offers the right combination of features for me.

I don't really see what the 'wankery' is.

> Just use the _core_ addons of Obsidian. That's all you need. Then if you find you really are missing something, have a look in the community addons. You'll probably find what you want.

For me there are several third party addons that are invaluable. The livesync plugin first of all, it's really great sync and fully self-hosted. This is quite a complex thing to get working and one where so many other apps fall down.

ReadItLater for capturing websites is also pretty nice. And the copilot one for searching notes with RAG.

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rhodeon 3 days ago | parent [-]

> it would be great if the app offered an option to hide its files from other apps by locating them in the app's private storage area

For what it's worth, you can do just that now. Not sure when it was introduced, but on the current Android version, you are prompted to select either "Device storage" or "App storage" when creating a new vault.

You can also change the location of existing vaults from app to device and vice-versa.

With that now available, the one thing missing for me is a biometric lock option. Or even any kind of locking at all. There's a community plugin for that, but it's quite unstable and no longer maintained.

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kepano 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

On iOS any app can be set to a biometric lock by long-pressing the app icon. I believe some Android flavors have this feature, but not all. However I think it can also be done on Android using the "spaces" feature.

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rhodeon 2 days ago | parent [-]

I use a Samsung device which unforunately doesn't have the app lock feature.

But it does have a "secure folder" which is more or less what you mean by "spaces", I guess.

The downside of the secure folder against normal app locking is that the apps are no longer seamlessly integrated with the launcher and other apps. It's definitely more secure but is ultimately overkill for my needs.

	▲	wkat4242 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah and for me it's no option because I have all the banking apps in my secure folder and as such I have a pretty long password on it. If you could have two secure folders then yeah maybe. And I also have a work profile as well through "Island" :)

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wkat4242 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Oh great! I didn't know that was an option <3 I'll have a look. I originally installed it a couple years ago when I bought my phone.

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wkat4242 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Ps: Where do you see the feature to move an existing Vault? I don't see this option sadly

	▲	rhodeon 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Sorry, I was mistaken about that aspect. The option is available to move a vault from the app to the device storage, but not the other way around. At least not from within Obsidian. But if you use a PC or a file manager that has full device access, you can manually copy the vault folder to the `/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/md.obsidian/files` directory. I just tried that and Obsidian recognised it.