Obsidian Setup Check-In

·38 min·3 clips

John and Federico reveal how Obsidian has 'gotten its claws deep' into them, prompting a check-in on their ever-changing setups.

Obsidian remains the center. The conversation starts with a simple admission: the app has worked its way into both hosts' routines and stayed there longer than they expected. They put that down to its flexibility, its power, and the odd pleasure of shaping the same app into very different tools. The setups keep moving. One host says the Obsidian he uses now is not really the Obsidian he used two years ago. Plugins changed the structure. Themes changed how it feels, and both hosts treat that look as part of the working setup, not decoration. The tone stays grounded. They are not selling Obsidian as the answer for everyone. They talk about it as an app that rewards people who are willing to make decisions and live with the maintenance. Sync is where that gets messy. Obsidian Sync sounds easy until device specific choices wander somewhere they do not belong. The e-ink example makes the problem obvious. An e-ink theme can land back on a Mac and make the whole setup feel wrong. That is real friction, not cosmetic fussing. The host has learned to turn off some settings on some devices so one workspace does not mess up another. Minimal design matters, too. He likes a quieter look, has been trying Border, and is waiting because consistency takes time. The H1, H2, H3, and H4 colors matter enough that a bad sync feels worse than a slow migration. That is the episode in miniature: Obsidian gives power users a lot of control, and then asks them to take care of it. Even the Jam read fits the shape of the show, but the main draw is still two users comparing what happens when a real tool gets used every day.

As heard by us

A practical tour of Obsidian as a personal system, shaped through themes, plugins, devices, and sync.

This App Stories episode follows John Voorhees and Federico Vittici as they treat Obsidian less like a finished note-taking app than a system that keeps adjusting to the person using it.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If your notes keep changing shape, this is a useful tour of how Obsidian setups evolve once plugins, themes, and devices enter the picture.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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