aliases:
- Advanced topics/How Obsidian stores data
description: This page explains how Obsidian stores its data on your device.
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permalink: data-storage
publish: trueObsidian stores your notes as Markdown-formatted plain text files in a vault. A vault is a folder on your local file system, including any subfolders.
Because notes are plain text files, you can use other text editors and file managers to edit and manage notes. Obsidian automatically refreshes your vault to keep up with any external changes.
You can create a vault anywhere your operating system allows. Obsidian syncs with Obsidian Sync, Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, Git, and many other third-party services.
You can open multiple folders as individual vaults, for example to separate notes for work and school.
Because Internal links are local to a vault, we recommend that you don't create vaults within vaults. Links may not be updated correctly.
Obsidian creates an .obsidian configuration folder in the root folder of the vault, which contains preferences specific to that vault, such as hotkeys, themes, and community plugins.
By default, most operating systems hide folders that start with a period (.), so you may need to update the settings for your file manager to see it.
Cmd+Shift+. (period) to show hidden files.Ctrl + h to show hidden files..obsidian to GitThe .obsidian/workspace.json and .obsidian/workspaces.json files store the current workspace layout and update whenever you open a new file. If you use Git to manage your vault, you might want to add these files to .gitignore.
Obsidian stores global settings in a system folder. The location of the system folder depends on the operating system you're using.
/Users/yourusername/Library/Application Support/obsidian%APPDATA%\Obsidian\$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/obsidian/ or ~/.config/obsidian/IndexedDB is a low-level, client-side database that Obsidian uses for backend storage. It helps maintain the state of Obsidian Sync connections, and preserves the Metadata cache when the application is closed.
In order to provide a fast experience while using the app, Obsidian maintains a local record of metadata about the files in your vault called the metadata cache. This metadata powers many things across the app, from the Graph view to the Outline view.
Obsidian keeps this cache in sync with the files in your vault, but it is possible for the data to get out of sync with the underlying files. In the event that this happens to your vault, you can rebuild your metadata cache from the app settings in the Files and links section.