Settings sync

Courier carries more than notes: your Obsidian settings — which plugins are on, your theme, your hotkeys — can follow you to your other devices, so a new phone or a second computer does not start as a fresh install. This page covers the config folder (.obsidian); the files in the vault itself are in Which files sync.

What can sync

The config folder is handled in groups. Each group has its own switch, and all of them are off until you turn them on, under Settings → Courier → Obsidian settings sync:

• Main settings — editor options, files and links.
• Appearance — theme name, fonts, interface options.
• Themes — the theme files themselves.
• CSS snippets — the snippet files.
• Hotkeys.
• Core plugins enabled and core plugin settings.
• Community plugins enabled — the list of which are on, and installed community plugins — the plugin files. They are two switches, so a device can list a plugin without installing it.
• Other config files.

The switches belong to the device: a group that is off here is neither sent from this device nor applied to it. Turning a group off deletes nothing anywhere, and turning it back on picks up where it stopped.

What never syncs

• The workspace layout — which pane is open, how the window is split. Obsidian rewrites it constantly, and syncing it would only fight.
• Caches, and Courier’s own settings — the plugin’s folder holds this device’s key, and sending it would hand another device your credentials.
• Settings are a plugin feature: a device that syncs only through the command-line tool does not sync the config folder at all.

How it works

Settings take the same route as notes: encrypted on this device, uploaded, and pulled by the other devices once they hear about it. A change made here is on the other device a moment later.

Once it arrives, some settings take effect right away and some need a reload — a new theme’s files, CSS snippets, and plugins being switched on or installed are only read when Obsidian starts. The settings page says which is which: a group that needs a reload has a line under its switch saying so.

When one of those arrives, a card says Settings synced, with Reload and Later. The card never expires on its own, so a setting that arrived hours ago is not quietly missed, and a burst of changes raises one card, not one per file.

When two devices change the same setting

The newer modification time wins, silently. Settings are not notes — there is no file list to park a copy in, so a copy there would be invisible and impossible to act on. Sync does not stop, and the losing value is simply overwritten. See Conflicts.