# Obsidian - Lets Talk About Backups ![[images/Obsidian-Lets-Talk-About-Backups.webp]] [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOGD4nJt_A8) · 19:42 · Josh Plunkett · 2024-09-01 ## Outline ### 00:00 Importance of backups - Obsidian is a locally installed app, so your vault lives on your own hard drive, and if that drive fails you can lose the vault. Cloud tools like **World Anvil** back up their servers as part of the subscription; Josh prefers not paying subs for everything, which means doing a little work himself to keep his data safe. - Until now he's used **GitHub**: at the end of every session he manually syncs his vault up, giving him a version-controlled online copy that he also used to sync to other devices. - **Obsidian Sync is not a backup**, and he's seen the devs say so. It replicates changes between machines, so a bad change spreads everywhere. It does keep per-file version history, so you could technically recover, but it isn't a true backup. The same goes for **Google Drive** and **OneDrive** syncing. - What he means is a pure backup: an actual copy of the vault stored somewhere else for emergencies, like when a drive dies with four years of work on it. ### 03:08 Introduction to Local Backup - The new plugin making local backups easy is **Local Backup**. It does what it says: it copies your vault to another location. - Don't put the backup on the same hard drive as the vault, or one failure takes out both. Use a second drive. ### 03:54 Plugin installation and setup - Settings, Community plugins, Browse, search "local backup". It's by **gccchen** (spoken "GC Chen") and was updated about 7 months earlier. ![[images/Obsidian-Lets-Talk-About-Backups-t0401.webp]] - As with all backup tools, **read the README**. Josh also checks the GitHub repo: 17 open issues and 22 closed. Keep an eye on issues, since abandoned plugins can leave you stuck, but he's heard good things. - Install, then **Enable**, then **Options**. ### 05:09 Customizing backup parameters - **Show ribbon icon** adds a "Run local backup" button to the left sidebar. He clicks it by accident and starts a backup of his 10 GB vault. ![[images/Obsidian-Lets-Talk-About-Backups-t0512.webp]] - **Backup once on startup**: he turns this on. The Discord had a discussion about how often you should back up. - **Backup history length (days)** and **backups per day**: every copy costs space (three copies of a 10 GB vault is 30 GB), so set these to what your drives can hold. His four-year-old vault barely changes beyond session prep, so one day's worth is enough for him. - **Folder path**: his goes to `D:\Obsidian Backups`, where the first backup is a 9.32 GB file. He copied the path from Windows Explorer with "Copy address as text"; Linux and Mac have their own field. ![[images/Obsidian-Lets-Talk-About-Backups-t0650.webp]] - **File name**: a template that defaults to vault name, "-Backup", then year, month, day and time, so the newest is easy to spot. He left it as the default. - **Interval backups** (for example every 10 minutes): left off, because at 10 GB they'd quickly eat all his space. ### 08:04 External archiver configuration - **Backup by calling external file archiver**: turned on. He uses **7-Zip**, open-source freeware; **WinRAR** and **Bandizip** are also supported. - He browses to the 7-Zip folder under Program Files and pastes the path to `7z.exe` (the plugin's example path even shows it). The plugin then uses 7-Zip for compression. ![[images/Obsidian-Lets-Talk-About-Backups-t0830.webp]] ### 09:01 Running and restoring backups - With startup backup on, every vault launch takes a backup, and the ribbon button runs one on demand. - `Ctrl+Shift+I` opens the developer console so you can watch it send the command to 7-Zip and report "file created by 7-Zip successfully", plus the internal checks that enforce the retention rules. - Opening a finished archive shows the whole vault folder inside. If his C drive died, he'd copy that folder to a new drive and open it in Obsidian through the vault switcher: **Manage vaults**, then **Open folder as vault**. - How often to back up is up to you. Think about how many drives you have; Josh has three hard drives plus a G drive, with the working vault on one and the backup on another, so one failure still leaves a copy. ### 11:44 Integrating cloud storage - Making the video got him thinking: what if the whole computer died? He opens his primary **Pathfinder 2e (PF2e) vault**, installs Local Backup, and this time points the output at a **Google Drive** folder, backup once on startup, keeping three, and the same 7-Zip settings. Setup takes seconds. - He tests it with **Reload app without saving**. The console shows the backup starting, and a 2 GB-and-growing zip appears in his "Obsidian Backup" folder in Google Drive. ![[images/Obsidian-Lets-Talk-About-Backups-t1405.webp]] - Google Drive then syncs that archive to the cloud on Google's infrastructure, giving him a local copy plus a cloud copy. That covers disasters like a fire in his computer room that would destroy both local drives: the same idea as companies keeping an **off-site backup** in another building. ### 15:45 Restoring from cloud backups - To restore, he opens the zip (Windows can open it natively, or use 7-Zip), copies the vault folder out onto another drive (`D:\Obsidian`), and renames it to mark it as the backup. - In Obsidian: **Open folder as vault**, select the folder, then **Trust author and enable plugins**. The backup includes his theme and plugins, so everything comes back the way it was once indexing finishes (10 to 15 minutes for his vault). - Local Backup by gccchen has a donate link if you want to buy him a coffee. - The main takeaway: whatever method you use, **have a backup**. People in the Obsidian TTRPG Discord have lost everything when their computer died. ### 18:42 Community and final thoughts - He recommends starting at [Obsidian TTRPG Tutorials](https://obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/) rather than going through YouTube: start with Getting Started, then plugin tutorials, and only learn what you need. - This is his **100th video**, and you don't need to watch all 100. - Join the Obsidian TTRPG Community Discord to chat or post issues; many people besides Josh can help. ## Things mentioned ### Obsidian plugins and features - **Local Backup** by gccchen: free community plugin. Startup backups, retention by days and per day, custom folder path and filename template, interval backups, external archiver support, ribbon button. Has a donate link. - **Obsidian Sync**: Obsidian's paid sync service. It has per-file version history but is not a backup. - Community plugins browser, **Manage vaults** and **Open folder as vault**, **Trust author and enable plugins**, **Reload app without saving** - Developer console (`Ctrl+Shift+I`) for watching the backup run ### Tools and services - **7-Zip**: free, open-source archiver (`7z.exe`), which Josh uses - **WinRAR** (paid shareware) and **Bandizip** (free and paid editions), also supported as archivers - **GitHub**: Josh's earlier manual, version-controlled backup and sync method - **Google Drive**: syncing service; used here as an off-site destination for the backup zips. Not a backup on its own. - **OneDrive**: syncing service; not a backup on its own - **World Anvil**: paid subscription, always-online worldbuilding tool whose backups are handled server-side ### Websites, communities and products - [Obsidian TTRPG Tutorials](https://obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/), Josh's tutorial site - Obsidian TTRPG Community Discord - [TTRPG Foundation Vault on Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/JPlunkett) (paid), linked in the description ### TTRPG systems - **Pathfinder 2nd Edition (PF2e)**: his primary vault these days ## Bios - **Josh Plunkett**: an Australian Dungeon Master and YouTuber who runs Obsidian TTRPG Tutorials and its community Discord, teaching Obsidian as a TTRPG campaign manager and selling a foundation vault on Patreon. He's about four years into his main vault here, now runs Pathfinder 2e, and calls this his 100th video. - **gccchen** (spoken "GC Chen"): the developer of the Local Backup community plugin for Obsidian. The handle is from the plugin listing as Josh reads it, so the exact spelling may differ.