Introduction

I’ve been lookng at ways to increase my productivity lately, and one of my favorite tools for that is Obsidian. I love using it for jotting down notes and ideas because it’s all built on simple markdown files, and the community plugins make it super customizable to fit your needs.

One challenge I ran into, though, was syncing my vault between my phone and computer. I didn’t want to pay for Obsidian Sync since I don’t rely heavily enough on it to justify the subscription. That’s when I discovered remotely-save — a fantastic plugin that lets you sync your Obsidian vault with any S3-compatible storage system, like Cloudflare R2.

Important: Always back up your vault locally before setting up any sync system. Better safe than sorry if something goes wrong!

How to Set Up R2

  1. Create a Cloudflare account.
    (I won’t walk through that process here, since it’s straightforward.)

  2. Access the R2 panel from the Cloudflare dashboard.

  3. Set up a free R2 tier.
    Here’s what’s included in the free tier (as of writing):

    • 10 GB of storage
    • 1 million object operations per month
    • 1 GB of egress (downloads) per month
      (Always double-check the latest limits.)

  4. Create a bucket.
    I named mine obsidian-sync, but you can choose your own name.

  5. Create an R2 API token:

    • Grant it read and write permissions for the bucket you just created.
    • Name it something obvious, like ObsidianSyncToken.

  6. Save your access key ID and secret key securely.
    You’ll need them soon!

Connecting R2 to Remotely-Save

  1. Download and install the remotely-save plugin via Obsidian’s Community Plugins section.

  2. Enable the plugin after installation.

  3. Configure the plugin settings:

    • Remote Service: S3 or Compatible
    • Endpoint: Your endpoint listed in the R2 dashboard
    • Access Key ID: Your R2 access key ID
    • Secret Key: Your R2 secret key
    • Region: auto

  4. Verify the connection by clicking the “Check” button.

  5. If successful, return to Obsidian’s main screen and press the “remotely-save” button to sync.

  6. Check your R2 dashboard to confirm your vault has uploaded.

Connecting Another Device

To sync additional devices:

  1. Open Obsidian on the new device.
  2. Install and enable the remotely-save plugin.
  3. Enter the same access key ID, secret key, and region.
  4. Press the “remotely-save” button.

Your vault should now populate!

Tip:
Always press the “remotely-save” button:

  • When you open Obsidian
  • Before you close Obsidian

There’s an experimental “save on change” feature too, but be careful. It can increase the number of operations and potentially result in additional charges if you exceed the free tier.

Conclusion

I’ve been using this setup for a few weeks now, and it’s been amazing.

There was only one small issue early on. When I had just one file in my vault, syncing didn’t occur because the plugin’s default threshold was set to 50 changed files. Easy to fix once discovered.

Now, I can use my favorite note-taking tool across all my devices, completely for free — and the best part is that you can scale it to as many devices as you want.

Happy note-taking!