Obsidian Vaults

A vault is a note repository ^[1] in Obsidian's terminology. I have consolidated many sources into Obsidian so that I can benefit from search, linking and a better discoverability of the information I have written down. This also allows me to leverage some useful things that are in the environment where Obsidian lives: platform independence, centralized (and in my case semi-automated) backup process, (any) cloud usage, data available offline.

If linking between notes is allowed (it is in Obsidian), then it is better to keep all notes in a single repository: it is known that concepts of life aren't separated or split between living contexts, and it is better that the software reflects that ability / possibility.

Even if linking is not possible, it is better to have all items / notes in a single place, separated and categorized as per their contexts. It will make recovering notes easier and will reduce friction while taking notes or associating information for better discoverability.

For ideas and patterns on what to link, see Patterns to make linking easier / Patterns to make linking easier. To help expand that process, see Note linking process / Note linking process.

Number of vaults

When considering the number of vaults, I'm a firm defender of using a single vault for everything. A vault is nothing else but a folder containing your notes and the settings, cache, themes, etc. that Obsidian uses. Think of it as a repository for your notes, including how they will show up and any possible automation you have.

There are, obviously, some very specific cases for using different vaults. Some of these are:

1. Using different encryption keys for the files on each vault
2. Segregating different intellectual property contexts (e.g work and personal vaults)
3. Sharing via tools that doesn't support partial sharing of your data
4. Sharing the whole vault, including themes, automation and appearance of it with other people

Other than these, you'll have a lot more of trouble justifying why things are as ft they house.

If you think about it and try to justify many cases of different vaults, people are reimplementing what is easily obtainable with different folders.

When assessing if you really need different vaults, think about why you need it.

There are some benefits — you can have different appearance without having to switch themes, you can isolate tags and notes, etc. — but there are also some drawbacks — there's no synchronization features between multiple vaults, links between them don't automatically update if you move or rename notes, etc. — and checking your specific usage case is what will let you decide better if you need a single vault or multiple ones.

Note that you can link notes between vaults, but they won't auto update. With the Obsidian URI core plugin and the Advanced URI plugin you can try eliminating some of these issues but it won't work for all cases and it won't auto update notes in the other vault. It is a “better than nothing” solution, but it is not that good in the end.

As this is documenting my use of it, I need a single vault. I've always had a single repository for my data. Of course, corporate information should never be in personal devices and that is how I've been doing for more than 30 years now. Corporate data in corporate equipment using corporate approved software.

Every vault needs a name. I'm not that creative, but my vault's name is “Area51”. The first presence I can remember I had in internet was with a free hosting named “geocities” and I had a space at the Area 51 neighborhood.

Vault usage

I search a lot in my vault. Before creating new notes, I check if I have something on that topic. I've written about it at Searching for notes.

And I don't split my notes all the time. There's a “rule” I created for myself where if I don't embed or mention part of a note in at least two to other notes, then I don't split it. I have detailed it at Splitting Notes.

The reason is that having multiple fragmented notes make it harder to see the big picture of things. And it won't impact reusing contents that already exist in my vault.

Information reuse is simple with fewer notes and the process I use here. I've tested creating multiple small notes (Atomic notes), but notes with enough information worked better (Molecular notes).