If you use multiple vaults in Obsidian, switching between them back and forth is frustrating. It’s annoying. You click the “Open Another Vault” button and select the other vault you want to open.
Every time you have to do the same thing. It’s tiring.
There’s no easy way to bounce back and forth between your different vaults.
This article will discuss a few workarounds that will help you solve the limitations.
Note: This article focuses more on desktop workflow.
Use the Hotkey Feature to Switch Between Vaults
Obsidian offers a hotkey to switch vaults. Go to settings> Hotkeys. Search for Vault. You see two options:
- Open another vault
- Open sandbox vault
The hotkey to open another vault will open the vault switcher, where you again have to select the vault that you want to open.
On the other hand, the sandbox vault template will directly open the obsidian help vault.
For this to work, you will have to assign a hotkey in each of the vaults that you use.
This is not the ultimate solution we want. Here’s a better one.
Use Multiple Windows to Navigate Multiple Vaults.
To switch back and forth between vaults more easily, you can open each of your vaults in new windows.
This way you can easily cycle in between different vaults.
For example: Here’ I’ve three vaults open. And I’m on Windows. I can switch between these three vaults by using the key ALT+ TAB.
Easy Peezy, right?
Use Obsidian’s URL scheme
This is another best way to switch back and forth between different vaults. Obsidian URL scheme allows you to do different things such as:
- Open a vault: obsidian://open-vault?vault=some-vault-name
- Open specific note: obsidian://open-note?vault=some-vault-name&filename=some-note-title
- Create new note: obsidian://open-note?vault=some-vault-name&filename=some-note-title
- Append to a note: obsidian://append?vault=some-vault-name&filename=some-note-title
We want to open different vaults and switch between them easily.
I’m on Windows OS. So, something might differ if you are on macOS or Linux. Here’s what we’ll do:
Create a new shortcut on your desktop
Right-click anywhere on the desktop> New> Shortcut.
Add the Obsidian URL scheme
It’ll open the window to add the location of the item. Here you can simply add the Obsidian URL.
Here’s how the URL format will be: obsidian://open-vault?vault=some-vault-name
You can also get it another way.
Go to your vault. Open a note. Click on the three dots for more options. In the end, you’ll find the option to ‘Copy Obsidian URL’.
This will copy the Obsidian URL for the note. Erase everything after your vault’s name.
Adding an Obsidian URL only will cause one problem. You can’t pin that shortcut to the taskbar. So here’s what we need to do.
- Locate the installation path of the Obsidian app.
- Copy the path
- Add the app path. Then add the Obsidian URL Scheme with a space.
Here’s what the location looks like for me:
C:\Users\Praka\AppData\Local\Obsidian\Obsidian.exe obsidian://open?vault=Second-BrainOnce you have done that, click on next to create a shortcut.
You can follow a similar method for creating shortcuts for all of your vaults. They all will have similar icons. You can change that by downloading ‘ico’ format icons.
Go to the browser and search for distinctive icons. If you can’t find ico formats, you can convert them using online converters as well.
OR
You can also use Obsidian’s own icon creator to generate personalized icons.
Once you have done all of this, drag the icons to the taskbar. And you’re set.
You can access all of your vaults from the taskbar. Without ever touching the vault switcher again.
References:
- Quick switching between Vault — Feature requests — Obsidian Forum
- [Mobile] A more convenient way to switch between vaults — Feature requests — Obsidian Forum
- Quick switch between vaults? — Help — Obsidian Forum
- URL Scheme — Feature archive — Obsidian Forum
- Option: Open Last Used Vault or Open Vault Selector — Feature requests — Obsidian Forum
Thank you for reading. You’ll love more tips like this from Obsidian Ninja.
