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Comment by threatofrain | Hacker News Reader

What's wrong with using Dropbox or Github?

I can't speak for OP's motives, but one reason one might do this is because you can't sync via Dropbox or Github on iOS. You can only use iCloud or Obsidian Sync.

What about MEGA?

Been using this way for years.

Please would you care to share your workflow? I, too, would love to sync my Obsidian vault via MEGA, but I have only recently switched to an iPhone. On Android, it works perfectly with the 3rd party Autosync for MEGA app (paid, I believe).

I use Obsidian on MacOS, iOS and Android, and keep my Vault on GitHub. I use Working Copy on iOS and PocketGit on Android to pull and commit/push changes.

GitHub works ok on iOS with Working Copy, but it seems a little more error prone than Sync, which Just Works. I use Sync for primary syncing, and Obsidian Git for secondary.

You’re right! It now works on all platforms natively via the plugin (which does nothing except for replace API endpoints.) works perfectly for me without any third party servers

I had to shell out for another app[0] on the iPhone to allow for a fairly seamless GitHub workflow. Not sure if it’s changed in recent times. It works great, but I’d imagine something more tightly coupled with obsidian.md would eliminate that need?

0: https://workingcopy.app/

I did out together this blog post a while for doing this for free using ashell

https://cwoodall.com/posts/2022-01-02-obsidian-ios-sync/

They are still 3rd parties - only good if you're using E2E encryption. Additionally, Dropbox free version has a 3-device limit at any time. On Android you have to use something like DropSync to enable background syncing which may not be ideal.

Git(hub) may be an okay choice though. But there would be issues like no SSH support for Git on Mobile clients.

What's wrong with getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem?

Dropbox is a consumer product, while Github is a nerd's product. I put them both to indicate the range of options.

Dropbox or iCloud are solutions you could put on a blog for folks who have no interest in learning how to use a CLI.

Character by character sync. You type one letter on your desktop, it appears on the mobile app maybe a second later. Dropbox sync can't do that.

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