Where apps hide your files

Locating an Obsidian vault

Updated 2026-10-28 · 5 min read

Obsidian keeps your notes as plain Markdown files in a folder you picked, so finding them is a matter of finding that folder. Here is how, including vaults stored in iCloud Drive.

Where things are

Your vault:          the folder you chose when you created it
Vault settings:      <vault folder>/.obsidian/
App-wide settings:   ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/
iCloud vaults:       iCloud Drive > Obsidian > <vault name>   (as Finder shows it)

Obsidian's own help defines a vault as a folder on your local file system, including its subfolders, and gives /Users/yourusername/Library/Application Support/obsidian as the place for global settings on macOS. Your notes are plain Markdown files in the vault, not rows in a database.

Find your vault from inside Obsidian

The quickest route is Obsidian itself. With a vault open, right-click any note or folder in the file explorer and choose Reveal in Finder. Finder opens inside the vault, and the path bar (⌥⌘P in Finder) shows exactly where it sits.

To see every vault Obsidian knows about, click the vault profile at the bottom of the left sidebar and choose Manage Vaults.... Vaults can live anywhere: Documents, Desktop, an external drive or iCloud Drive.

Open the app settings folder

In Finder use Go > Go to Folder (⇧⌘G) and paste a path. In Terminal:

open ~/Library/Application\ Support/obsidian

The iCloud question

Obsidian's sync help says that on a Mac an iCloud vault should be created inside the Obsidian folder in iCloud Drive, using a folder you name yourself. Its iPhone and iPad instructions add that the correct folder is the one with the Obsidian icon: a plain folder named Obsidian without the icon is a different place, and the mobile app will not see vaults there.

Behind the scenes, that Finder folder is an app container inside ~/Library/Mobile Documents, hidden because it is inside ~/Library. Obsidian does not document the raw name, so find it rather than typing it:

ls ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents | grep -i obsidian

Obsidian also recommends keeping the vault downloaded. On macOS Sequoia and later, right-click the Obsidian folder in iCloud Drive and choose Keep Downloaded. On Sonoma and earlier, its help suggests turning off Optimize Mac Storage, noting that this affects all of iCloud Drive, not just Obsidian. Offloaded files cannot be read by Obsidian.

What is inside a vault

Item	What it is
*.md files	Your notes, plain text Markdown
Attachments	Images and PDFs, in the folder set under Files and links in Obsidian's settings
.obsidian/	Hidden folder of vault settings: hotkeys, themes, community plugins
.obsidian/plugins/	Community plugins and their data
.obsidian/themes/	Installed themes
.obsidian/snippets/	Custom CSS snippets
.trash/	Deleted notes, if Deleted files is set to Obsidian's own trash

Names starting with a dot are hidden in Finder. Press ⇧⌘. (Shift Command Period) in a Finder window to show them, and press it again to hide them.

Getting notes out

There is nothing to export: the notes are already files. Quit Obsidian, copy the vault folder in Finder, and the copy is complete. Open it in Obsidian through Open folder as vault, or read the notes in any text editor.

Copying .obsidian along with the notes keeps plugins, themes and hotkeys. Leave it out to share notes without your settings.

Space and cleanup

Vaults stay small unless they hold attachments. Sort the vault folder by size in Finder, or measure it in Terminal, replacing the example path with your own vault:

du -sh ~/Documents/MyVault/* | sort -h

Delete attachments through Obsidian when you can, so links update. .trash is safe to empty once you are sure you do not need those notes. Deleting .obsidian does not touch your notes, but you lose plugins, themes and hotkeys and Obsidian starts that vault with defaults.

Moving a vault

Obsidian's help gives a built-in route: open Manage Vaults..., close the vault's own window, then use More options next to the vault and choose Move vault. If that does not work, move the folder in Finder while Obsidian is closed, avoiding folders synced by other services, then reopen Obsidian and choose Open folder as vault. The old entry can be cleared with Remove from list, which only removes it from the list.

Backing up

Because a vault is just a folder, Time Machine, a git repository or a cloud folder all work. Avoid putting the same vault in two sync services at once, which creates conflicting copies.

Why search misses parts of it

Spotlight indexes notes in ordinary vault folders, but it does not show hidden folders such as .obsidian or .trash, and it does not show anything under ~/Library, which is where Obsidian's app settings live.

Finding vaults you forgot about

Every vault has a .obsidian folder, so searching for that name returns one result per vault. In Terminal, this lists them without opening anything:

find ~/Documents ~/Desktop -maxdepth 4 -name .obsidian -type d

Add other folders, such as an external drive under /Volumes, if you kept vaults elsewhere.

Vaults inside vaults

Obsidian's help recommends against creating a vault inside another vault, because internal links only work within one vault. If your note count looks wrong, check whether you opened a parent folder that contains a second vault.

The app-wide folder

Leave ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian to Obsidian. Obsidian's help describes it only as the global settings folder, and it also holds window state and caches. Obsidian keeps a metadata cache of your notes, which you can rebuild from the Files and links settings if search or links misbehave, so there is no need to delete files there by hand. Keep vaults out of this folder.

Plugins and portability

Community plugins live inside each vault's .obsidian/plugins folder, so copying a vault with its settings copies them too. If a plugin saves files elsewhere, its own documentation will say so.

Finding a vault next time

Everywhere finds files by name across the Mac, hidden .obsidian folders included; vaults in Documents, Desktop or iCloud Drive are covered once it has Full Disk Access, which macOS requires for those places. Typing part of a note title, or .obsidian, shows where each vault sits, and ⌘↵ reveals it in Finder. It matches file names only, not the words inside your notes.

Common questions

Where does Obsidian store notes on a Mac?

In the vault folder you chose when you created it, as plain Markdown files. Right-click a note in Obsidian's file explorer and choose Reveal in Finder to open that folder.

Where is the Obsidian iCloud folder on Mac?

In Finder it is the Obsidian folder (with the Obsidian icon) inside iCloud Drive. The real folder is an app container inside the hidden ~/Library/Mobile Documents; run ls ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents | grep -i obsidian to see its name.

Where does Obsidian keep its settings?

Per-vault settings are in a hidden .obsidian folder inside the vault, and global settings are in ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian.

How do I see the .obsidian folder in Finder?

Open the vault folder and press ⇧⌘. (Shift Command Period) to show hidden files. Press it again to hide them.