The Obsidian Autosave Control is an Obsidian plugin designed to manage file saving behavior by temporarily deferring file saves during editing. It provides control over when files are saved to disk, helping to prevent issues related to rapid or unintended saves, such as conflicts with external synchronization services or version control systems.
By default, Obsidian saves changes to files immediately as you type. While this is convenient for most users, it can cause problems in certain scenarios:
- External Synchronization Conflicts: When using synchronization tools like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Git, rapid and frequent file saves can lead to synchronization conflicts or unnecessary versioning noise.
- Performance Issues: Saving large files or files on network drives can introduce latency or performance degradation when saves occur too frequently.
- Data Integrity Concerns: Immediate saves may risk saving unintended or incomplete changes, especially when experimenting with content that you may not wish to keep.
The Obsidian Autosave Control addresses these issues by introducing a controlled save mechanism, allowing you to define when and how often files are saved.
- User-Configurable Save Interval: Set the period during which file changes are kept in memory before being saved to disk, ranging from 1 second to 3600 seconds (1 hour). Default: 10 seconds.
- Lock Period: Implements a lock period during which changes are accumulated but not saved to disk.
- Automatic Unlock and Save: After the lock period expires, the plugin automatically saves the changes to disk.
- Multiple File Handling: Supports editing multiple files simultaneously, each with its own lock period and save timing.
- Status Bar Icon: Displays a status icon in the Obsidian interface. The icon is blue when a file is locked (i.e., not yet saved) and turns green once all files are saved. The icon's tooltip provides information about the current save state.
The Obsidian Autosave Control is designed to be platform-independent.
If you don't want to manually build the plugin, you can use the pre-built version from the latest release.
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Download the Pre-built Release
- Go to the Releases page of this repository.
- Download the latest version of the plugin (
obsidian-autosave-control.zip).
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Install the Plugin in Obsidian
- Extract the contents of the
.zipfile. - Create a folder named
obsidian-autosave-controlin your Obsidian vault's.obsidian/plugins/directory. - Copy the extracted files (
main.js,manifest.json) into theobsidian-autosave-controlfolder.
- Extract the contents of the
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Enable the Plugin
- Open Obsidian.
- Go to Settings > Community plugins.
- Ensure that Safe mode is off.
- Click on Reload plugins.
- Find Obsidian Autosave Control in the list and enable it.
For users who want to build the plugin from the source, follow these steps:
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Clone the Repository or Download the Source Code
- Clone the repository or download the source code as a ZIP file.
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Install Dependencies
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Navigate to the plugin's directory in your terminal.
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Run the following command to install dependencies:
npm install
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Build the Plugin
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Run the following command to build the plugin:
npm run build
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Install the Plugin in Obsidian
- Create a folder named
obsidian-autosave-controlin your Obsidian vault's.obsidian/plugins/directory. - Copy the built files (
main.js,manifest.json) into theobsidian-autosave-controlfolder.
- Create a folder named
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Enable the Plugin
- Open Obsidian.
- Go to Settings > Community plugins.
- Ensure that Safe mode is off.
- Click on Reload plugins.
- Find Obsidian Autosave Control in the list and enable it.
Once the plugin is installed and enabled, it operates automatically.
- Locking Files: When you start editing a file, the plugin temporarily locks the file by intercepting the save operation.
- Deferring Saves: Obsidian is prevented from saving the file immediately. Changes are kept in memory.
- Automatic Saving: After the user-defined lock period, the plugin automatically saves the file.
- Continuous Editing: If you continue editing, the lock period resets, and the file is saved after the new interval since the last modification.
- Exiting Obsidian: If you exit Obsidian, the plugin intercepts the event and saves all locked files before letting Obsidian quit.
- Closing Tabs: If you close the editor tab of a file, the plugin unlocks and saves the file immediately.
- Switching Files: If you switch the editor tab of a file to another file, the plugin unlocks and saves the file immediately.
- Renaming Files: If you rename a file which is currently under lock, the plugin detects the action and makes sure that the content is being stored to the new file name.
- Status Indicator: A status icon is displayed in the status bar of the Obsidian interface. When files are locked and unsaved, the icon turns blue, with a tooltip saying "Changes pending save." Once all files are saved, the icon turns green, and the tooltip reads "All changes saved."
- Open Obsidian.
- Go to Settings > Obsidian Autosave Control.
- Save Interval: The period (in seconds) during which file changes are kept in memory before being saved to disk.
- Range: Must be between 1 second and 3600 seconds (1 hour).
- Default: 10 seconds.
- Changing the save interval updates all existing timeouts for locked files to match the new interval.
- No need to reload the plugin or Obsidian; changes are applied on the fly.
- Data in Memory: Changes are held in memory during the lock period. In the unlikely event of a crash, unsaved changes during the lock period may be lost.
- No Conflict Resolution: The plugin does not handle merge conflicts or synchronization issues beyond controlling the save timing.
- Obsidian Updates: Future updates to Obsidian's API may affect the plugin's functionality.
⚠️ WARNING⚠️ : Please use this plugin with caution only on vaults with backed up data because it is in alpha release!
Contributions are welcome! If you have ideas for improvements or encounter any issues, please open an issue or submit a pull request on the GitHub repository.
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Clone the Repository
git clone https://github.com/mihasm/obsidian-autosave-control.git -
Install Dependencies
npm install
- Build
npm run build
This will watch for changes and rebuild the plugin automatically.
Create a symbolic link from the plugin's build directory to your Obsidian vault's .obsidian/plugins/ directory.
This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.
Disclaimer: This plugin is not affiliated with or endorsed by Obsidian. Use it at your own risk.
Changes are kept in memory during the lock period. If Obsidian crashes or is forcefully closed before the changes are saved, unsaved changes during the lock period may be lost. It's recommended to set a reasonable save interval based on your needs to minimize potential data loss.
No, the maximum allowed save interval is 3600 seconds (one hour). Storing changes in memory for longer periods increases the risk of data loss in case of a crash.
The plugin is designed to be efficient and should not noticeably affect Obsidian's performance. It periodically updates the content of locked files and manages timers for saving files.
The plugin should be compatible with most other plugins. However, since it overrides Obsidian's file modification method, conflicts could arise if another plugin modifies the same method in a conflicting way.
To disable the plugin:
- Go to Settings > Community plugins.
- Find Obsidian Autosave Control in the list.
- Click on the toggle to disable it.
If you encounter any issues or have questions, please open an issue on the GitHub repository.
- Obsidian Community: Thanks to the Obsidian community for providing an extensible platform and support.
Note: Always ensure you have backups of your important data. Use this plugin at your own risk.