🧠 Free Note Syncing Across All Your Devices — No Subscription Required

Stop paying for cloud sync. Start owning your notes.

If you're anything like me, ideas don't wait for you to be at your desk. They hit you in line at the grocery store, at 2am when you can't sleep, or right in the middle of something else entirely. You need a way to capture them instantly — and have them waiting for you on every device.

Today I'm going to show you how to set up Obsidian — a free, powerful note-taking app — on your desktop AND your Android phone, and sync everything between them for $0/month using Git and GitHub.

No coding experience needed. Just follow along.

WHAT YOU'LL HAVE WHEN WE'RE DONE

• ✅ Obsidian installed on your Windows desktop
• ✅ Obsidian installed on your Android phone
• ✅ All your notes automatically syncing between both devices
• ✅ A full backup of every note you've ever written on GitHub
• ✅ Version history — you can go back and see every change you've ever made

PART 1: SET UP YOUR DESKTOP

STEP 1 — INSTALL OBSIDIAN ON WINDOWS

1. Go to https://obsidian.md
2. Click Download and grab the Windows installer
3. Run the installer and open Obsidian
4. When it asks, choose "Create new vault"
5. Give it a name (something like "My Vault" or "Notes") and pick where to save it — your Documents folder works great

You now have Obsidian running with an empty vault. Write a quick test note if you want — just click the new note icon and type something.

STEP 2 — INSTALL GIT ON WINDOWS

Git is the tool that handles syncing behind the scenes.

1. Go to https://git-scm.com/downloads
2. Download the Windows installer
3. Run it — you can accept all the default options during install
4. Once installed, open Command Prompt (search "cmd" in your Start menu) and type: git --version
5. If you see a version number, you're good

STEP 3 — CREATE A GITHUB ACCOUNT AND REPOSITORY

GitHub is where your notes will be stored in the cloud (it's free).

1. Go to https://github.com and sign up for a free account
2. Once logged in, click the "+" icon in the top right and choose "New repository"
3. Name it something like "Obsidian" or "Notes"
4. Set it to Private (unless you want the world reading your notes!)
5. Don't check any of the boxes for README, .gitignore, or license — leave them all unchecked
6. Click "Create repository"
7. You'll see a page with a URL that looks like: https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/Obsidian.git — keep this page open, you'll need that URL

STEP 4 — CONNECT YOUR VAULT TO GITHUB

Open Command Prompt and navigate to your vault folder. If your vault is in Documents, type:

cd C:\Users\YOUR-USERNAME\Documents\Your Vault Name

Then run these commands one at a time:

git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git branch -M main
git remote add origin https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-REPO-NAME.git
git push -u origin main

It may ask you to sign into GitHub in a browser — do it. After that, your notes are on GitHub!

Don't worry about the LF/CRLF warnings — those are harmless line-ending messages on Windows. Totally normal.

STEP 5 — INSTALL THE OBSIDIAN GIT PLUGIN

This is the magic piece that makes it all automatic.

1. In Obsidian, go to Settings (gear icon, bottom left)
2. Go to Community plugins
3. Turn off Restricted mode if it's on
4. Click Browse and search for "Obsidian Git" (by Vinzent03)
5. Click Install, then Enable
6. Now go to the plugin's settings (still in the Settings menu, scroll down to "Obsidian Git" under Community Plugins)

STEP 6 — CONFIGURE THE PLUGIN SETTINGS

Set these values:

• Auto commit-and-sync interval: 5 (commits your changes every 5 minutes)
• Auto push interval: 5 (pushes changes to GitHub every 5 minutes — DON'T leave this at 0!)
• Auto pull interval: 5 (pulls changes from GitHub every 5 minutes)

That's it for desktop. Your notes will now automatically save, commit, and sync every 5 minutes.

PART 2: SET UP YOUR ANDROID PHONE

STEP 7 — INSTALL OBSIDIAN ON ANDROID

1. Open the Google Play Store
2. Search for "Obsidian" and install it
3. Open the app

Don't create a new vault yet — we're going to clone your existing one.

STEP 8 — INSTALL THE OBSIDIAN GIT PLUGIN ON MOBILE

1. In Obsidian mobile, go to Settings → Community plugins
2. Turn off Restricted mode
3. Browse and install "Obsidian Git" (same plugin, by Vinzent03)
4. Enable it

STEP 9 — CREATE A GITHUB PERSONAL ACCESS TOKEN

Your phone can't use your saved Windows credentials, so you need a token.

1. On your phone (or computer — might be easier), go to: https://github.com/settings/tokens
2. Click "Generate new token" → choose "Fine-grained" or "Classic" (classic is simpler)
3. Give it a name like "Obsidian Mobile"
4. For classic tokens: check the "repo" scope (full control of private repos)
5. Set expiration to whatever you're comfortable with (or "No expiration")
6. Click Generate token
7. COPY THE TOKEN NOW — you won't be able to see it again!

STEP 10 — CLONE YOUR VAULT ON MOBILE

1. In the Obsidian Git plugin settings on mobile, enter:
   • Username: your GitHub username
   • Password/Token: paste the personal access token you just created
2. Open the command palette on mobile — swipe down from the top of the Obsidian app (not the phone's notification shade)
3. Search for "Clone an existing remote repo" and tap it
4. Enter your repo URL: https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-REPO-NAME.git
5. It will ask about a vault folder — accept the default
6. When it asks if your remote repo contains a .obsidian directory at root — tap Yes
7. Let it clone — this might take a moment

STEP 11 — CONFIGURE MOBILE PLUGIN SETTINGS

Go into the Obsidian Git plugin settings on mobile and set:

• Auto commit-and-sync interval: 5
• Auto push interval: 5
• Auto pull interval: 5
• Pull on startup: ON ← This one is important!

PART 3: TEST IT!

1. Create a new note on your phone — just write "Hello from mobile!" or whatever
2. Either wait 5 minutes or manually trigger a sync from the command palette ("Commit-and-sync")
3. Check your desktop — within a few minutes, the note should appear

Then do the reverse — create a note on desktop and watch it show up on your phone.

If it works, you're done. You now have free, automatic, cross-device note syncing with full version history. 🎉

QUICK TIPS

💡 Capture ideas fast: The whole point of this setup is that your phone is always in your pocket. Idea hits you? Open Obsidian, jot it down, and it'll be waiting on your desktop when you sit down to work.

⚠️ One device at a time: Try not to edit the same note on both devices at the exact same time. The auto-sync handles most things, but simultaneous edits to the same file can cause merge conflicts.

📱 Mobile limitations: The Git plugin on mobile is labeled "experimental" by its developer. It works well for small to medium vaults, but if your vault grows very large (hundreds of files with images), you might experience slowness. For most people, it's perfectly fine.

🔒 Your notes are private: As long as you set your GitHub repository to "Private" in Step 3, nobody can see your notes but you.

WHY THIS SETUP IS WORTH IT

• It's free. Obsidian Sync costs $8/month. This costs $0.
• You own your data. Your notes are plain text files on your computer and your GitHub. No proprietary lock-in.
• Version history. Every change is tracked. Accidentally delete a paragraph? Go back in time and get it.
• It works offline. Both apps work without internet. They sync when you're back online.

Got questions? Send us an email — happy to help you get set up!

Do your own research. Don't be a statistic.