Synchronize Your Vault
What a sync does, which side wins, and how to keep folders out of the garden.
Synchronize Your Vault
Settings → Standard Garden → Publication → Sync Now, the panel’s sync button, or the command Tend the garden (Sync all notes) reconciles your vault with the garden. A progress window shows what will happen — ↑ to publish, − to unpublish, ↓ to download — then one line per note as it is processed. You can cancel at any time. Anything that fails is listed with the reason, and Copy log puts the whole report on your clipboard.
Only what changed is uploaded
A note that is identical to its online copy is skipped: no upload, and no image checking either. “Identical” ignores what the plugin writes itself (garden-url, garden-short, modified, a permalink that matches the online address) and compares images by name. A note is sent again when its text or any other frontmatter changed, or when something it embeds — an image, an attachment, a transcluded note — was modified since the last sync.
The server accepts about 60 writes per minute, so the plugin spaces its uploads by a little over a second. Your first sync of a large vault is slow; later ones are quick because most notes are skipped.
Sync direction
Which side wins when both differ. Choose it in Settings → Publication → Sync direction.
| Push (local wins) | Two-way | |
|---|---|---|
| Changed local note | Published | Published, unless the online copy is newer |
| Online copy edited more recently | Overwritten by your local version | Pulled into your file |
publish: false locally, still online |
Unpublished online | Unpublished online, unless the online copy is newer (then it is pulled and set to publish: true) |
| Note deleted online | Republished from your vault | Marked publish: false locally, garden-url removed |
| Note that exists only online | Not created locally | Created in your vault |
Push is the choice for the strictest local-first workflow: your files are never modified by what happens online. Two-way lets you write from the web editor or a phone and find the changes in your vault. “Newer” is judged with a 5-second margin.
Automatic synchronization
The Automatic synchronization switch makes the plugin check, 5 seconds after Obsidian starts and then every 5 minutes, whether the note you have open is still up to date, so its status badge stays truthful. It also keeps the ↓ N counter fresh. It never uploads or overwrites anything by itself — use Sync all for that.
Notes to download
A note that exists online but has no file in your vault has nowhere to show a status badge, so the panel header shows a ↓ N counter instead. Click it (or run Harvest seeds (Download new notes from garden)) to bring those notes into your vault. A note already in your vault under another name is recognised by its short link, so it is not duplicated.
Ignored folders
Some folders should never reach the Garden. List them in Settings → Publication → Ignored folders (comma-separated, e.g. Utopie, Archive, Private), or right-click a folder in the file explorer and choose Garden: ignore this folder (the same entry reads stop ignoring once it is listed).
The Garden then ignores those folders entirely:
- nothing in them is published or synced, even with
publish: true; - they show no status badge;
- Mycelium neither suggests them as links nor offers suggestions inside them;
- they don’t appear in feeds.
A subfolder inherits its parent’s setting, and names are matched without regard to capitals.