Obsidian is my note taking/productivity app. It is my favorite app by far. Notion is good but Obsidian just offers so many more features that Notion cannot. If you want to read more about my opinions, you can check out my reviews on both via App Seeker. App Seeker is coming soon but those reviews are completed. So don’t mind the Notion icon below, that will be changing before the official release. You could say it is in Beta right now.

Anyway, I want to go over my setup, that way if anyone would like to know how I have it set up, what theme I use, what plugins I have installed, I can link them here and they can use the Table of Contents to find what they want to know about my vault. First, I’ll start with the theme and my exact settings (yes, I will be sharing all CSS Snippets) and then I will move over to usage. Check the Table of Contents above to get to the place you want to see.

Backup Settings

I have several backups for my vault. Since it contains extremely important information to me. I keep my vault backed up to my 2TB M.2 External SSD connected via USB-C Port.

The devices I sync using Obsidian Sync…

• iPhone 15 Pro 256GB
• iPad Pro 12.9” M2 Wi-Fi Only 256GB
• Windows PC with i7 (several gens old) and 2070 Super
• 14” MacBook Pro M3 Max with 32GB of RAM

It is highly recommended to have at least 1 backup (besides the vaults on your devices) in case something happens to your vault. Especially if you use Obsidian Sync because that is a sync service and not a backup service. There have been several times I’ve seen vaults get screwed up and people come to the Obsidian Server to ask about it and they end up losing notes. Don’t be that person!

I consider each device as a backup since your Obsidian vault is just a folder with files in it. So, each device has my vault locally on it and then I have an off-site backup with GitHub and my 2TB External SSD. That way if anything happens to any of my devices (or all of them) I don’t have to worry about losing my vault.

Aesthetics

Theme

I use AnuPpuccin.

I am still working on updating the colors in the rainbow folders but what you see pictured is what I have so far. Besides that the rest of it stays the same. The right hand side from top to bottom is the properties view of the current active file, then my Homepage file that contains my tasks due today from Todoist via Taskbone and lastly the Calendar Plugin by Liam. Then the left side is bookmarks and the file explorer. Super simple. I try to keep my view as simple as possible.

Alternate Theme: Minimal by Kepano

When I decide that I have had enough of the customization that AnuPpuccin has or if I am using my phone or iPad, I use Minimal. I do that because it works the best on mobile devices.

When I have it installed, I make sure to also install Minimal Theme Settings + Style Settings that way I can customize the theme even more.

Plugins

I got the idea for this setup from Daniel on the Obsidian Discord Server. He puts this list inside his vault, which is useful, though I am keeping it here because it makes it easier for me to share the list with the world. I can just link to this page which I will keep updated and you can see the date at the very top for when this was last updated.

Anyway, here are my plugins and what they are used for…

 👉 I have 10 plugins currently. They are all enabled.

Core Plugins

These are all of the core plugins I have enabled…

• Backlinks
• Bookmarks
• Command Palette
• Daily Notes
• File Recovery
• Files
• Outline
• Page Preview
• Properties View
• Search
• Slash Commands
• Sync
• Templates
• Workspaces

The others I have disabled for one reason or another. Canvas is buggy and unusable for me. Tags view is not useful because I use folders not tags. I don’t pay for Publish. I don’t find graph view or backlinks or outgoing links useful at all because I haven’t linked my notes much yet (maybe I will in the future). Format converter is not useful because all of my notes are md and if they aren’t, it is because of a plugin or because it is a PDF.

Obsidian BRAT

BRAT is a plugin that lets me install other pre-release plugins that may cause issues. I try not to install very many pre-release plugins but the ones I have installed and keep installed have been found to have very few bugs on mobile and desktop so I keep them installed to have the latest versions.

Obsidian Banners

This allows me to add cool banners (pictured below) to my notes. This is one that is installed via BRAT because the official version available in the plugin “store” (what I call it) does not work with the current version of Obsidian. The pre-release version does work with it. If you want to see what banners I use, I have a GitHub Repo with all of them.

Dataview

This is on the roadmap to be combined into Obsidian so it won’t be on this list for long.

This allows me to query my notes in unique ways. I highly recommend it. It has a steep learning curve but the forum, subreddit, and discord are very helpful with figuring out how to query tasks.

Obsidian Kanban

I use this to manage my bills, personal projects, and to help keep track of my husband’s school. I keep different lists and fill them up with tasks. You can now (via BRAT) view these kanban boards as list or table view as well which makes this an even better plugin.

I highly recommend this plugin. Especially since the developer has been updating the plugin like crazy via BRAT within the last few weeks. He has become super responsive.

Obsidian Calendar

I use this in the sidebar on my desktop & iPad versions of my vault. Mostly because you never know when you need a calendar. Helps me keep track of my life.

Style Settings

I use this to further customize my Obsidian themes from what the base themes allow.

Handwritten Notes

Allows me to create handwritten notes/drawings via my iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. I don’t do this often, most of my handwritten notes are created in Apple Notes BUT when there are long-term notes that I want to save but handwrite, I use this plugin. These are not searchable via OmniSearch + Text Extractor BUT I keep them organized in certain folders so I know where to find them and I don’t need to search for them.

Settings Search

I use this to search through the Obsidian settings. It makes it easier to find things. Why is this not a built-in feature? Like, seriously?!

Style Settings

This is currently disabled because I haven’t integrated it into my own theme yet and I am not using Minimal at the moment. It is great for customizing themes even more though.

Usage

I use Obsidian to journal, write my daily affirmations, as well as keep notes on important things I want to keep track of like notes for work and personal files. My Obsidian vault is super simple as I have restarted it over the last 2 months. I tested out Obsidian Tasks, I have tested out using Things 3 inside Obsidian, and I have tested using OneNote, Apple Notes, and UpNote and ultimately keep coming back to Obsidian cause it has everything I need and it is local first so I know my files are private.

Eventually, my vault will grow and have more and more things, but, for now, it is mostly just used for journaling. That is enough for me to pay the yearly $60 subscription (I have the education discount) for Obsidian Sync, especially since I have the 50gb of total storage for my vaults and I can have 200mb file storage maximum.

Back on topic, I can also easily add items from my phone, iPad, or Macbook using the Apple Shortcuts app and my custom shortcut. I use this shortcut anytime there is something quick I want to save to remember for later. If you want to use this shortcut, the only thing you would want to update is the section below:

You may want to change either the name of the file it updates or switch that out so it creates a new file in your vault when you run the shortcut.

Anyway, that’s my setup. I am happy to answer any and all questions below!