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How to Make and Build a New Vault in Obsidian Notes App

Obsidian is a powerful note-taking app that allows you to create vaults to organize your notes. A vault in Obsidian is essentially a folder on your device where all your notes are stored locally.

As an experienced Obsidian user, I highly recommend creating multiple vaults to keep different categories of notes separate. For example, you may want to have separate vaults for work notes, personal notes, financial records, etc.

Why Create Multiple Vaults?

Here are some key reasons why having multiple vaults can be beneficial:

  • Organization – Multiple vaults allow you to compartmentalize your notes into logical groupings. This keeps everything neat and easy to navigate.
  • Separation – Certain notes may contain sensitive information that you want to keep isolated in its own secure vault.
  • Performance – Large vaults with thousands of notes can slow down the app’s performance. Multiple smaller vaults improves speed.
  • Sharing – You can selectively share vaults instead of your entire note repository.
  • Backups – It’s easier to manage backups of smaller vaults.

Step-by-Step Guide to Build a New Vault

Follow these simple steps to create an additional vault in Obsidian:

On Desktop

  1. Open Obsidian and click the “Open another vault” button.
  2. Click “Create new vault”.
  3. Give your new vault a name.
  4. Use the file browser to select a location on your device to store the vault.
  5. Click the “Create” button.

That’s it! Your new empty vault is now ready to hold new notes.

On Mobile

The process is very similar on mobile:

  1. Launch the Obsidian app.
  2. Tap the “Open another vault” button.
  3. Press “Create new vault”.
  4. Name your vault.
  5. Choose a location to store the vault files.
  6. Tap “Create” to finalize making the vault.

Best Practices for Multiple Vaults

To get the most out of having multiple vaults, keep these best practices in mind:

  • Use descriptive vault names like “Work Notes” or “Book Ideas” so you can tell them apart.
  • Color code your vaults with custom icons to easily differentiate them.
  • Install the “Vault Switcher” plugin to efficiently jump between vaults.
  • Sync your vaults to cloud storage for access across devices.
  • Create a “hub” vault with MOCs linking out to your other vaults.
  • Set up routine backups of all your vaults to avoid losing notes.
  • Keep private or confidential notes isolated in their own encrypted vaults.
  • Limit large media files, attachments, and PDFs to specific vaults to optimize performance.

Conclusion

Creating multiple Obsidian vaults to organize your notes takes your workflow to the next level. By compartmentalizing your notes into logical categories and sharing notes between vaults using links, you can build a robust second brain to manage both your personal life and professional endeavors.

So go ahead, make another vault! I hope this guide gives you clarity on how to efficiently structure your knowledge base in Obsidian. Let me know if you have any other questions!

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