Sync Setup

Carry your Obsidian community plugin setup between devices using the vault sync service you already use. Sync Setup stores a readable profile in your vault; it does not run a sync service or require an account.

What it does

• Records installed community plugins, whether they are enabled, and whether each belongs everywhere, on desktop, on mobile, or only on this device.
• Compares a device with the shared profile and shows matching, missing, different, and skipped plugins.
• Offers a review screen before installing plugins or changing enabled state. It never uninstalls plugins.
• Skips desktop-only plugins on mobile and checks compatibility before offering an install.
• Keeps plugin settings and credentials out of the profile. Settings sync is not available in this release.

Install

Once Sync Setup is listed in Obsidian's Community Plugins directory:

1. In Obsidian, open Settings → Community plugins → Browse.
2. Search for Sync Setup, install it, and enable it.
3. Open Settings → Sync Setup.

For a GitHub release, download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the release whose tag matches the version in manifest.json. Place them in <vault>/<config-folder>/plugins/obsyncdian/, restart Obsidian, then enable Sync Setup under Community plugins.

Set up devices

1. On the device with your preferred setup, open Sync Setup settings and choose Use this device as source. Review the proposed profile changes and save.
2. Let your existing vault sync finish. Sync Setup writes sync-setup-profile.json at the vault root, so devices can share it even if they use different Obsidian configuration folders.
3. Install and enable Sync Setup on the other device. Open its settings and choose Preview restore. Review the proposed installs and enabled-state changes, then apply the ones you want.

With Obsidian Sync, make sure the vault syncs other file types and that sync-setup-profile.json is not excluded. Obsidian Sync's community-plugin list settings can independently install or enable plugins; configure those settings on each device if you want Sync Setup to control this workflow. With another sync service, allow it to sync the profile file. Wait for sync to finish before capturing or restoring.

Sync Setup supports desktop and mobile in its manifest and uses Obsidian vault APIs for the profile. Mobile support has not yet been verified on physical iOS and Android devices. Restore uses Obsidian's internal plugin manager methods, which are not part of its public plugin API; if a required method is unavailable, Sync Setup reports the affected action rather than editing plugin files directly.

Profile and safety

The profile is JSON you can inspect and version with your vault. Sync Setup can read profiles created under the previous vaultdeck-profile.json name or in the old Obsidian config folder, then writes future profiles as sync-setup-profile.json. Replacing an existing profile first saves sync-setup-profile.backup.json alongside it. Sync Setup previews changes, rechecks the profile and local plugin inventory before applying, never removes installed plugins, and never reads or writes third-party plugin settings files. SecretStorage data, credentials, tokens, and passwords are not exported.

Plugin binaries are installed from Obsidian's official community plugin directory. The profile stores plugin IDs, names, enabled state, scope, and desktop-only metadata; it does not pin plugin versions or carry plugin binaries. Missing plugins that cannot be found, installed, or used on the current device are shown as skipped.

Sync Setup has no account, server, telemetry, or network activity except release lookup during an explicit restore, which checks Obsidian's community plugin directory and the plugin repositories listed there.

Build from source

npm ci
npm run build
npm test
npm run lint
npm run typecheck

Contributing and security

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development and pull-request guidance. To report a security issue privately, use GitHub's Security tab for this repository rather than a public issue.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Obsidian is a trademark of Dynalist Inc. Sync Setup is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Obsidian.