Syncing Time Garden Between Devices

A comparison of every sync option for Time Garden — Obsidian Sync, iCloud, Syncthing, Dropbox — with honest trade-offs.

Your journal lives on disk. To use it on multiple devices — your laptop and your phone, your home Mac and your work PC — you need a sync solution.

This page is the honest comparison of the options that work.

TL;DR Recommendation

Situation	Best option
You already pay for Obsidian Sync	Obsidian Sync — easiest, encrypted, designed for this
Mac + iPhone, no extra subscription	iCloud Drive — free, simple, Apple-only
Cross-platform, no money	Syncthing — free, peer-to-peer, slightly nerdy setup
Already deeply on Dropbox / OneDrive / Google Drive	It can work, but watch for corruption issues — see below

Option 1: Obsidian Sync ($8/month, recommended)

The official solution. Built specifically to handle Obsidian vaults — including the .obsidian/ config folder, plugins, and snippets.

Pros:

Encrypted end-to-end
Handles plugins, themes, snippets across devices automatically
Mobile + desktop both supported flawlessly
Version history (one year)
No conflicts on simultaneous edits — Sync handles them

Cons:

Costs money
Time Garden's image-heavy nature means your sync storage fills up faster than a typical text vault

Setup: Subscribe → Settings → Sync → Create vault → Enable on each device. Done.

Option 2: iCloud Drive (Free, Apple Ecosystem)

For Mac + iPhone/iPad users, iCloud is a no-brainer free option.

Pros:

Free (within your iCloud plan)
Zero setup once it's working
iOS Obsidian opens iCloud vaults natively

Cons:

Apple-only
iCloud occasionally lags on first sync; can leave your vault in a weird state if interrupted
Doesn't sync .obsidian/ config reliably across devices (you may need to manually copy plugins/snippets)

Setup: Move your Time Garden vault to ~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/ on Mac. On iPhone, open Obsidian → "Open existing vault" → it appears.

Option 3: Syncthing (Free, Cross-Platform, P2P)

Syncthing is a free, open-source peer-to-peer sync tool. Works on every platform (yes, including Linux). It's how a lot of privacy-minded users sync.

Pros:

Free
Works on every OS
Peer-to-peer (your files never sit on a third-party server)
Encrypted in transit

Cons:

Setup takes 20 minutes the first time
Both devices need to be online and reachable to sync (LAN sync is instant; WAN sync needs Syncthing's relay servers)
Mobile (especially iOS) is awkward — you'll need a third-party app like Möbius Sync

Setup: Install Syncthing on each device → add the Time Garden vault folder → exchange device IDs → mark folder as shared → wait for sync.

Option 4: Dropbox / OneDrive / Google Drive

Be cautious with cloud-folder sync.

These services do file-level sync — they upload entire files when changed. Obsidian and Time Garden write to many small files rapidly (especially during template generation, AI operations, etc.), and the sync tool can:

Race against Obsidian's writes, causing partial saves
Generate conflict copies when two devices change the same file at once
Repeatedly upload large image files even after small text edits

Some users report years of trouble-free use. Others have lost data. Treat it as a "works mostly, but back up extra" option.

If you must use one, always quit Obsidian before letting the cloud service finish syncing, on every device. And keep a separate backup (e.g., a weekly zip of the vault).

What To Sync (And What Not To)

Whatever method you pick, you want these synced:

00 Dashboard/
01 Daily/ … 05 Yearly/
06 Templates/
07 Notes/
.obsidian/        ← see note below

The .obsidian/ folder contains plugins, settings, and snippets. Whether to sync it:

If using Obsidian Sync: yes (Sync handles it intelligently — including device-specific exclusions)
If using iCloud / Syncthing: yes, but be aware that syncing .obsidian/workspace.json can cause weird tab-state on the other device (you can exclude that one file)
If using Dropbox / OneDrive: ideally yes, but watch for plugin file conflicts. Some users sync only the markdown folders and re-install plugins on each device manually

A Sanity Tip

Have a backup that *isn't* sync.

Sync is not backup. If you delete a file accidentally, sync helpfully deletes it everywhere. Once a week (or before any big change), copy your vault folder to an external drive or a separate backup tool (Time Machine, Backblaze, git, whatever you like).

You only need this once. The day you do, you'll be very glad.

When You Move Your Vault

If you move your Time Garden vault folder on disk (e.g., into iCloud, or to a different drive), Obsidian will lose track of it. You'll need to re-open the vault: Obsidian → "Open another vault" → "Open folder as vault" → pick the new location. (See Opening Time Garden.)

The plugin's Eternal license is tied to the vault's birth path and detects unauthorized duplications. Moving is fine — just don't copy the vault into multiple folders and run them all in parallel.

Up Next

Opening Time Garden on Your Phone — putting your synced vault on mobile
Performance & Slowness — when sync makes things slow
Updating Time Garden — keeping things in sync across version updates

Syncing Time Garden Between Devices

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