How Obsidian stores data

Obsidian stores your notes as Markdown-formatted plain text files in a folder on your device called a vault. A vault is just a regular folder — including any subfolders — that you choose. Because your notes are plain text files, you can:

• Open and edit them in any text editor.
• Manage them with any file manager.
• Back them up, version-control them, or sync them with any tool that works with files.

Obsidian watches your vault folder and automatically reflects any external changes you make.

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Where your vault lives

You can create a vault anywhere your operating system allows: your home directory, a Documents folder, an external drive, or a folder managed by a sync service. Obsidian is compatible with Obsidian Sync, Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, Git, and other third-party sync services.

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Vault settings — the .obsidian folder

When you open a folder as a vault, Obsidian creates a .obsidian folder in the vault root. This folder holds all settings specific to that vault: By default, most operating systems hide folders that start with a period (.). To make .obsidian visible:

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Global settings

In addition to the vault-level .obsidian folder, Obsidian stores global settings (account info, global appearance) in a system folder. The location depends on your operating system:

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Metadata cache

To keep the app fast, Obsidian maintains a local metadata cache — a record of each file’s properties, headings, tags, and links. This cache powers features like Graph view, Outline view, backlinks, and search. The cache is stored in IndexedDB (a browser-level local database) and is rebuilt automatically from your files. If the cache gets out of sync, you can rebuild it manually from Settings → Files and links → Rebuild cache.

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Backups

Because all your data is stored as plain files in a regular folder, backing up your vault is straightforward:

• Manual backup — copy the vault folder to another location or an external drive.
• Version control — use Git to track changes and maintain history.
• Cloud sync — use Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, or a similar service to keep an off-site copy. Obsidian Sync also includes version history.

Back up the entire vault folder, including the .obsidian subfolder, to preserve your settings, plugins, and themes alongside your notes.

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Privacy and portability

Your data never has to leave your device. Obsidian does not require an account and makes no network requests by default. All processing — search indexing, graph computation, link resolution — happens locally. Because notes are plain Markdown files, you are not locked in to Obsidian. You can migrate to any other tool that reads Markdown, or keep using the files directly in a text editor.

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Configuration folder

The default configuration folder is .obsidian in the vault root. You can override this name under Settings → Files and links → Override config folder. This is useful for:

• Testing different plugin or theme configurations in the same vault.
• Using a sync service that handles dotfiles differently.

Enter the name of your custom config folder in the Override config folder field. Relaunch Obsidian for the change to take effect.