I Think I've Grown Tired of Obsidian 🫤

[MitchWagner]

I spent an enjoyable few hours Sunday exploring Obsidian alternatives. I looked at UpNote, which is like Obsidian but has a few features I’m looking for that are missing from Obsidian — mainly improved folder support (UpNote calls folders “notebooks”) and a far better mobile client. And it’s also missing a lot of Obsidian features I don’t use.

Best Notes App - Write and Organize with UpNote

I also looked at Capacities, which looks potentially fantastic but not quite there yet.

Capacities – A studio for your mind

I also looked at NotePlan and Ulysses — both fine apps, but they leave me meh (though I was a heavy Ulysses user a few years ago — I even wrote a review of it for Six Colors.)

NotePlan - Tasks, Notes, and Calendar

Ulysses -

Review: Ulysses for iPad and Mac

I glanced at Bear, which has the same problem it has always had: I don’t want to be limited to tags to organize documents.

Bear

I also looked at Anytype, which confused the heck out of me. I’ll take another look, but it may just be that I’m not smart enough for Anytype.

anytype — the everything app

I went to bed last night having decided to migrate to UpNote. I had installed it on both my computers, my iPhone and iPads.

And then I woke up this morning and decided I’ll just stay with Obsidian a little longer and take better advantage of some of its built-in organization and popular plugins to simplify my set-up. Simplify, not complicate.

My main reason for staying with Obsidian was that I didn’t want the hassle of switching apps. The payoff seems too small, particularly because I am intrigued by Capabilities, want to learn more about Anytype if I can, and might just find myself switching again in a few weeks or months. Also, Upnote uses a proprietary document format, not standard files, though I’m beginning to thing that might be necessary for a notes and document management app that does what I want.

My latest, greatest Obsidian tip: Use the Finder. The built-in Obsidian File Explorer is weaksauce; use the Finder to add documents, check document names, etc. You can even move, rename and delete documents in the Finder, though you need to be cautious about it.

As part of using the Finder: These instructions lets you set Obsidian as your default Markdown editor.

Make Obsidian a default app for Markdown files on macOS

This is useful to me because I can now use the Finder to locate and open any document in my vault. When I open that document, I’m in the vault and can navigate around from there.

To be clear: All of the apps named here look great. DevonThink is great too. Just not for me right now, I think.

[Synchronicity]

Houses are a brilliant metaphor, and you capture perfectly my own experience with apps (and houses!) that seem to get messy and start to feel “old” over time.

@ryanjamurphy

Tools like note-taking apps and task management tools feature a special kind of cruft : the detritus of old parts and ideas that builds up as someone works on projects. Cruft leaves you with the feeling that it needs to be intentionally and deliberately sifted through and recycled. What can you remove? You can’t just throw it all out, as it might contain important parts that are hard to replace! But you never have the time or energy to deal with it, so it accumulates, and sort-of gets in the way although you can kind of step around it if you know where to put your feet.

One of the advantages of Obsidian when this happens is that you can simply create a new vault and copy over anything you currently or regularly need. Then if you ever find you need anything else from your old vault, you can go back and copy it over.

You can even partially or completely change your configuration, theme, collection of plugins, etc. in your new vault, either by copying over your .obsidian folder and modifying it or starting fresh with a new one—knowing you can go back to your old configuration at any time, simply by replacing your .obsidian folder with a copy from your old vault. I don’t know of any other app that makes that possible.

[Synchronicity]

@MitchWagner

use the Finder to add documents, check document names, etc. You can even move, rename and delete documents in the Finder

There’s nothing wrong with using the Finder, but I can do all of those things in the File Explorer, too.

You can also try the File Tree Alternative plugin, which has had almost 250k downloads.

[nationalinterest]

@MitchWagner

I went to bed last night having decided to migrate to UpNote. I had installed it on both my computers, my iPhone and iPads.

And then I woke up this morning and decided I’ll just stay with Obsidian a little longer and take better advantage of some of its built-in organization and popular plugins to simplify my set-up. Simplify, not complicate.

My main reason for staying with Obsidian was that I didn’t want the hassle of switching apps

I’m with you. I moved to UpNote in the quest of simplicity… even posted about it in another thread… and today in my work came across some deal breaking issues. Shame. It’s close. The sync is superb, although has been pointed out it’s not E2EE. The mobile app starts instantly. (Although that’s a major priority for the Obsidian team.)

So, I’m back with Obsidian. I’ve just spent some time uninstalling plugins and improving my filing (Auto Note Mover to move files based on titles or tags is brilliant!).

I’m no longer using Obsidian for tasks. Reminders is good enough.

[jr5]

Obsidian has been great. I especially like using it with the Blue Topaz theme. It’s fast, solid, and easy to enter and read notes.

But I’m transitioning to NotePlan, which has replaced both Obsidian and OmniFocus.

[MitchWagner]

I have tried the FIle Tree Alternative plugin and find it confusing.

The Finder offers an advantage or two over the File Explorer in Obsidian: Multiple windows or tabs, and the ability to mix folders with individual documents and display them in order of last modified, newest first.

[MitchWagner]

What was the breaking issue you found with UpNote?

[Bmosbacker]

Reading this thread absolved me of all guilt I felt about struggling to settle on my note taking and writing apps.

[Synchronicity]

@MitchWagner

The Finder offers an advantage or two over the File Explorer in Obsidian

I agree! File Explorer is more comparable to similar features in apps like iA Writer, Zettlr, and Typora than to full standalone file managers. But I still prefer markdown apps that include them to ones that don’t.

[IvanPsy]

I was on the same boat.
After so many years of Evernote, I’ve tried OneNote and ended up to DevonThink.
I was very happy with it, a real warhorse, but after some years I went back to Apple Notes and Finder.

I know it’s the same as DevonThink, but I realised that DT created too much friction and I looked for something so simple and constrained to push me to focus on the work, not the organisation itself.

Again: it’s not DevonTHink, it’s me.

[nationalinterest]

@MitchWagner

What was the breaking issue

There were several, in the end:

• Inability to duplicate a folder or multiple notes in one go (I work with projects which use the same base documents each time which I keep in a folder and duplicate each time). With Obsidian I can just go to Finder. That’s the downside to a database driven app.
• Inability to style exported PDFs or, indeed, have much control over them at all. I got it to work with Marked2 (an excellent tool) by exporting to Markdown, but highlighted text didn’t come across so I ended up using ‘fake’ markdown and a preprocessor script in Marked2. In Obsidian Better Export PDF makes it easy (and I had previously written CSS to make exports look how I wanted).
• Lack of themes - I don’t like pure white.
• Slow search.
• Lack of E2EE.

There’s a lot to like about UpNote, however, and I’d recommend people give it a go. My concerns were (mostly) unique to my workflow.

If I can stop myself tinkering with Obsidian I think I’ll be good. Spending half a day sorting out my workflow (logically, not technically) has helped greatly.

[FrMichaelFanous]

It’s tiring, but I am also tiring of jumping apps as well.

Evernote - Apple Notes - Byword - OneNote - Bear - Ia Writer - Devonthink - Ulysses - Obsidian

The fiasco of Evernote led me down the rabbit hole of note-taking apps several years ago.

Settled on Obsidian mainly because I was getting frustrated from lack of Text Size options in the other apps post Evernote or just being able to pinch/zoom to increase the size. I had experimented with Pages and Word, but unfortunately, I wanted to build up some library/keyword search.

Benefits of Obsidian

• ability to tag/search (although not always reliable)
• I use it for sermons, so easy to link the Bible references, quotes, etc.

Caveat

• tried the pinch/zoom on DevonThink note on my iPad. I guess I did it too much and the app crashed.

Obsidian Core Plugins Installed

• Audio recorder (never used yet)
• Backlinks
• Bookmarks
• Canvas
• Command Palette (might disable too many mistakes on iPad)
• Daily notes (will disable- use Day One)
• File Recovery
• Files
• Graph view
• Note Composer
• Outgoing links
• Outline
• Page preview
• Properties
• Quick Switch
• Search
• Sync
• Tags
• Templates

Community Plugins Installed

• Better Word Count
• Calendar (will disable since I don’t use Daily notes)
• Icon Folder (add emoji or icon to folder)
• Matter (unsure yet)
• Reading time (reading time of the note)

[nationalinterest]

@FrMichaelFanous

Evernote - Apple Notes - Byword - OneNote - Bear - Ia Writer - Devonthink - Ulysses - Obsidian

I can’t really remember my journey!

OneNote (got me through much of college) - Devonthink - Apple Notes - Notion - Bear - Obsidian - Logseq - Obsidian - UpNote - Obsidian.

I’m sure there have been others, but in recent times Obsidian is the one I keep coming back to. I should perhaps agree with myself to stick with it until Jan 2026!

[Bmosbacker]

I think we all need therapy. Is there an app for that? If so, which one do you recommend?

[vsp]

I’m sure this obsidian plugin can be forked for that.

GitHub - hungsu/obsidian-prompt: Obsidian plugin to show text prompts, for a...

The plugins, no matter how disciplined I am, there’s always a new plugin….

[AppleGuy]

I think my point has been made. We rounded out the discussion with a guy listing all the plugins keeping his vault afloat, and more discussions about plugins.

I’m Obsidian’d out because I’m Plugin’d out.

[OogieM]

@SpivR

My quest over the past few years has been to consolidate/simplify my computing life. Not just to save money (but eliminating subscriptions when I can is desirable), but to reduce the cognitive overload of constantly using many best-of-breed single use (or limited use) apps.

I’m on the same path but I replaced DEVONThink and host of other apps with Obsidian. I don’t have the same issues with it that you have so I can’t offer any solutions. For me the own my files, ease of including nearly any other file type I want to in my Obsidian vault system, no friction to opening any other file type from within Obsidian OR Finder, better linking to related files and quick lookup on iOS and iPadOS are good enough for me.

@ryanjamurphy

Cruft leaves you with the feeling that it needs to be intentionally and deliberately sifted through and recycled.

I’ve been using this simple method to work through and clean up the cruft that creeps into any system including my Obsidian system. I use the open random note feature in Obsidian and when I am waiting on the phone or have 5 minutes before I have to do something I’ll often just click on that and clean up any note that pops up. I can easily and slowly edit and make better all my notes and the freshness of a random one keeps me motivated to do a few every day in odd pockets of time. The “cruft” is being cleaned up painlessly one note at a time. I find myself deleting some, combining some into 1 and sometimes splitting notes and feel good about slow but steady progress/maintenance of my note system.

[vsp]

It’s funny how one of the biggest selling points of Obsidian can also be one of the bigger problems.

I’m not the best example of an Obsidian user though…I don’t use Obsidian for work so my needs really are just text files. I have a few plugins that do a few things I like but nothing I can’t live without. The only ones that I would truly miss are the periodic notes and the calendar plugin.

I did go plugin heavy when I first started using Obsidian, but quickly realized that wouldn’t work well for me. I remain impressed with all the things people come up with though. More power to all their workflows, especially if it’s fun for them. I 100% understand why people like it.

[Synchronicity]

@OogieM

I replaced DEVONThink and host of other apps with Obsidian.

Am I remembering correctly that you had data loss with DEVONThink?

[OogieM]

@Synchronicity

data loss with DEVONThink

Yes. This to get to over 20 characters.