Git

A Community Plugin for Obsidian.md to manage your vault with Git.

Documentation

Requirements, installation steps (including setup for mobile), tips and tricks, common issues and more can be found in the documentation.

For mobile users see Mobile section below.

Highlighted Features

• Automatic vault backup (pull, commit, push) on a schedule.
• Pull changes from remote repository on Obsidian startup.
• Manage different repositories via Git submodules (Opt-in in settings) (Desktop only).
• Stage, commit and diff individual files via the Source Control View. Open it with the Open Source Control View command.
• List your commits and their changed files (like a git log) via the History View. Open it with the Open History View command.
• For viewing the detailed history of a file, I strongly recommend you the Version History Diff plugin.

Source Control View

History View

Available Commands (not exhaustive)

• Changes
  • List changed files: Lists all changes in a modal
  • Open diff view: Open diff view for the current file
  • Stage current file
  • Unstage current file
• Commit
  • Commit all changes: Only commits all changes without pushing
  • Commit all changes with specific message: Same as above, but with a custom message
  • Commit staged: Commits only files that have been staged
  • Commit staged with specific message: Same as above, but with a custom message
• Backup
  • Create Backup: Commits all changes. If "Push on backup" setting is enabled, will also push the commit.
  • Create Backup with specific message: Same as above, but with a custom message
  • Create backup and close: Same as Create Backup, but if running on desktop, will close the Obsidian window. Will not exit Obsidian app on mobile.
• Remote
  • Push
  • Pull
  • Edit remotes
  • Remove remote
  • Clone an existing remote repo: Opens dialog that will prompt for URL and authentication to clone a remote repo
  • Open file on GitHub: Open the file view of the current file on GitHub in a browser window. Note: only works on desktop
  • Open file history on GitHub: Open the file history of the current file on GitHub in a browser window. Note: only works on desktop
• Local
  • Initialize a new repo
  • Create new branch
  • Delete branch
  • CAUTION: Delete repository
• Source Control View
  • Open source control view: Opens side pane displaying Source control view
  • Edit .gitignore
  • Add file to .gitignore: Add current file to .gitignore

Desktop

Authentication

Authentication may require additional setup. See more in the Authentication documentation

Obsidian on Linux

• ⚠ Snap is not supported.
• ⚠ Flatpak is not recommended, because it doesn't have access to all system files.

Please use AppImage instead (Linux installation guide)

Mobile

The git implementation on mobile is very unstable!

Restrictions

The mobile version is supported by isomorphic-git, which is a re-implementation of Git in JavaScript, because you cannot use native Git on Android or iOS.

• SSH authentication is not supported (isomorphic-git issue)
• Repo size is limited, because of memory restrictions
• Rebase merge strategy is not supported
• Submodules are not supported

Performance on mobile

Caution

Depending on your device and available free RAM, Obsidian may

• crash on clone/pull
• create buffer overflow errors
• run indefinitely.

It's caused by the underlying git implementation on mobile, which is not efficient. I don't know how to fix this. If that's the case for you, I have to admit this plugin won't work for you. So commenting on any issue or creating a new one won't help. I am sorry.

Setup: iPad Pro M1 with a repo of 3000 files reduced from 10000 markdown files

The initial clone took 0m25s. After that, the most time consuming part is to check the whole working directory for file changes. On this setup, checking all files for changes to stage takes 03m40s. Other commands like pull, push and commit are very fast (1-5 seconds).

The fastest way to work on mobile if you have a large repo/vault is to stage individual files and only commit staged files.

Contact

The Line Authoring feature was developed by GollyTicker, so any questions may be best answered by him.

If you have any kind of feedback or questions, feel free to reach out via GitHub issues or vinzent3 on Obsidian Discord server.

This plugin was initial developed by denolehov. Since March 2021, it's me Vinzent03 who is developing this plugin. That's why the GitHub repository got moved to my account in July 2024.

If you find this plugin useful and would like to support its development, you can support me on Ko-fi.