I can think of a number of other notes syncing that's better -- probably even Evernote's. As a happily paying Obsidian Sync customer, I'll drop some reality, so new people aren't caught off-guard.
- Obsidian Sync is pretty slow.
- Obsidian Sync doesn't happen in the background, at present. That means, if you just made a bunch of updates in Obsidian, or you haven't opened the Obsidian mobile app in a while, you're in for a wait.
- Obsidian Sync occasionally has sync errors that involve manual interaction.
That said, it's fine and the overall Obsidian experience makes it worth it (well, if you can swing a discounted price).
I use Microsoft Word’s multi-editing feature at work. The sync is essentially real-time (setting aside other opinions in Microsoft Office). You can see every change that your co-editors make as they make it. You can work on one file on two different devices at the same time. That is the kind of sync that I’d like.
More realistically, I used to use a custom sync setup with a WebDAV server I set up and Goodsync software. You can set it to sync in file change, and it was fast, with changes replicating in a few seconds.
As it is, the Obsidian sync takes a few minutes. And if you edit the file on another device before sync goes through, you’ll lose the changes from one device or the other.
> As it is, the Obsidian sync takes a few minutes. And if you edit the file on another device before sync goes through, you’ll lose the changes from one device or the other.
Clearly we have had very different experiences. I have mainly markdown notes, PDFs, and screenshots and it syncs everything continuously as I work. As for "losing" the changes, I'll have to push back on that. You have full version history, so while you might have to look at an old version, you won't lose anything. There's certainly nothing unique to Obsidian with respect to conflict resolution. If version history isn't working, you'll have to talk to the developers because there's a serious bug.
> "As it is, the Obsidian sync takes a few minutes. And if you edit the file on another device before sync goes through, you’ll lose the changes from one device or the other."
This has been my biggest fear using sync. So far I haven't had any issues, but I just get a" feeling" (maybe it's the lag between syncs) that this could definitely happen.
Can you explain in a little more detail how it might actually occur? Maybe so I can prevent it from happening.
Usually, I've had it happen when I try writing stuff on a device that's been offline and I haven't brought it online to pull in the latest changes. We essentially have a merge conflict. Thankfully, they're not a pain to resolve.
OK, got it. Thanks. So, to prevent from happening in the first place, it'd make sense to give the recently sleeping device a moment or two to catch up.
It significantly improved for me a few months ago. The syncing seems to start much more quickly after I open the app. Not perfect but much better than it had been when I had to keep the app open by constantly touching my screen and hoping it would even start the syncing process.
- Obsidian Sync is pretty slow.
- Obsidian Sync doesn't happen in the background, at present. That means, if you just made a bunch of updates in Obsidian, or you haven't opened the Obsidian mobile app in a while, you're in for a wait.
- Obsidian Sync occasionally has sync errors that involve manual interaction.
That said, it's fine and the overall Obsidian experience makes it worth it (well, if you can swing a discounted price).