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Obsidian Sync Setup — Multi-Device (Mac + iPad + iPhone)

Vault: ecomonetize remote vault, account: info@ecomonetize.com Encryption: End-to-end (only you hold the key — store in 1Password immediately)

Obsidian Sync setup — Mac Studio first

Step 1: Enable Obsidian Sync on the Mac vault

  1. Open Obsidian on Mac Studio → open the /Users/rhartley/Claude/ vault (if not already)
  2. Settings → Core plugins → Sync → enable the Sync core plugin
  3. Settings → Sync → Log in → sign in with your Obsidian account (the one paying for Sync)
  4. Choose remote vault:
  5. Click "Create new remote vault"
  6. Name: eco-monetize (or eco-monetize-claude if you prefer disambiguation)
  7. Encryption password: set a strong end-to-end encryption password — this is separate from your Obsidian login and cannot be reset. Store it in 1Password Production vault immediately. Obsidian cannot recover it for you.
  8. Click Create
  9. Obsidian begins uploading the vault. 381 MB will take 5–15 minutes on a good connection. Leave Obsidian running.

Step 2: Configure what gets synced (Mac Studio = everything)

On the Mac, you want the full vault synced to the remote, because this is your source of truth.

Settings → Sync → Advanced → Sync types: - ✓ Markdown notes - ✓ Images, Audio, Video, PDFs, Other file types - ✓ Config (this syncs .obsidian/ so your templates, snippets, CSS, and hotkeys appear on all devices)

Settings → Sync → Selective sync: leave everything included on the Mac.

Step 3: Selective sync recommendations per device

Device Sync Exclude
Mac Studio (primary) Everything (381 MB) nothing
iPad (travel richer) Most of the vault (~230 MB) archive/ (199 MB of historical — not needed on tablet)
iPhone (mobile minimal) CEO Working Set (~4-5 MB) archive/, knowledge/, content/, system/hooks/, production HTML dashboards

Step 4: iPad setup

  1. Install Obsidian from the App Store on iPad
  2. Open the app → "Open" → "Sync with Obsidian Sync" → log in with the same account
  3. Choose the remote vault: eco-monetize
  4. Enter the encryption password you set on the Mac (from 1Password)
  5. Wait for initial sync — most files download in a minute or two on Wi-Fi
  6. Settings → Sync → Selective sync: add exclusions:
  7. Exclude folder: archive
  8. (Optionally exclude knowledge/ip/prompts/ if you don't want the full prompt library on iPad)
  9. Settings → Appearance → CSS snippets: verify dashboard.css and the 6 other snippets are enabled (they should sync from Mac)
  10. Settings → Community plugins: install the Core Set (Dataview, Templater, Periodic Notes, Tasks, Kanban, Homepage, QuickAdd, Tag Wrangler, Excalidraw) — plugins don't sync automatically, you install per-device
  11. Settings → Homepage: set to dashboards/ceo-dashboard.md
  12. Open the CEO Dashboard — you're running

Step 5: iPhone setup

  1. Install Obsidian from the App Store on iPhone
  2. Open the app → "Open" → "Sync with Obsidian Sync" → log in with the same account
  3. Choose the remote vault: eco-monetize
  4. Enter the encryption password
  5. Before the initial sync finishes, go to Settings → Sync → Selective sync and add these exclusions:
  6. archive
  7. knowledge
  8. content
  9. system/hooks
  10. dashboards/production-migration (the 13 HTML files — useless on phone)
  11. Let the minimal sync complete (~5 MB should download quickly)
  12. Settings → Community plugins: install Core Set (same as iPad)
  13. Settings → Homepage: set to dashboards/ceo-dashboard.md

Key gotchas

[!important] Encryption password is unrecoverable Obsidian Sync uses end-to-end encryption. The password you set at remote vault creation cannot be reset by Obsidian because they never see it. Lose it = lose access to the remote vault (the Mac copy remains unaffected). Store it in 1Password immediately.

[!warning] First sync can be slow 381 MB → Obsidian cloud takes 5–15 minutes. Don't quit Obsidian during initial upload. Watch the sync status in the bottom-left corner.

[!warning] Conflicts happen when offline edits collide If you edit the same file on Mac and iPhone while one is offline, Obsidian creates a .conflict.md file. Resolve manually. Solution: prefer read-mostly on mobile; heavy edits on Mac.

[!tip] Plugin sync behavior Community plugins don't sync automatically across devices — you install them per-device. But plugin settings (via .obsidian/plugins/{plugin}/data.json) do sync if you enable "Config" in sync types. So you only need to install plugins once per device; they pick up your config.

[!tip] workspace.json is excluded by default Obsidian Sync automatically excludes workspace.json from sync because it's session-specific per device. Nothing to configure.

Obsidian Sync vs. iCloud comparison

Feature iCloud mirror Obsidian Sync
Vault size supported ~5 MB curated subset Full 381 MB
Conflict handling Manual, iCloud ghost files Automatic .conflict.md
Cross-device consistency Eventually consistent, hours lag Near-real-time
Encryption iCloud (Apple has keys) End-to-end (only you)
Version history None 1 year
Per-device selective sync Manual subset curation Built-in exclusion rules per device
Plugin settings sync No Yes (if Config sync enabled)
  • [[obsidian]] — primary tool reference page
  • reference_obsidian_sync_config.md in chief.staff memory — sync config current state