Git without the terror: a safe copy of our vault online

The word “git” sounds like something for programmers. In reality — it’s just a way to keep a private copy of our files online, with a history of changes. Not a single line of terminal code in this article, I promise.

3 scenarios that happen more often than we’d think

Before we talk about “how” — let’s be honest about “why.” Backup feels paranoid until one of three things happens:

1. The laptop dies. The most banal one. Spilled coffee, dropped it, dead drive, stolen. Any one of these — and our notes from half a year of work vanish with the device. iCloud Drive and OneDrive sometimes save us, but they often sync poorly and we end up with half the files.
2. A file accidentally deleted. We, or one of the family members who shares the laptop. Clicked the wrong thing, emptied the trash, file gone. Obsidian has a local history, but it’s not eternal.
3. The vault breaks after an update. Rare, but it happens: a plugin update, a sync conflict between devices, a weird combination of glitches — and the files are there but read as corrupted.

In all three cases one thing saves us: a second copy that isn’t on our laptop. Not on the same drive, not in the same house. Online, in private storage, with a history — so we can roll back to a state from a week ago.

GitHub — private storage online

GitHub is a service where we can keep private repositories for free. “Private” means — only we see the contents, no one else. It’s not publishing, it’s backup.

Signup:

1. Go to github.com, click Sign up.
2. Email, password, username. Done.
3. On the free plan we get unlimited private repositories. That’s enough for a vault for years to come.

Let’s create a private repository (e.g. named obsidian-vault):

1. Click + in the upper right → New repository.
2. Name: obsidian-vault (or whatever we want).
3. Check Private — critical, not Public.
4. Don’t add README, .gitignore, or license — create it empty.
5. Create repository.

We remember this repository’s URL — something like https://github.com/[our-username]/obsidian-vault. We’ll need it in Step 4 below.

Obsidian Git plugin — setup via UI

Now the best part: we’ll be using neither the terminal nor the command line. Everything goes through regular Obsidian settings.

Step 1 — Install the plugin

1. In Obsidian, click the gear in the lower left — that’s Settings.
2. On the left, pick Community plugins.
3. First time — click Turn on community plugins (Obsidian warns us we’re running third-party code — agree).
4. Click Browse, search for “Obsidian Git”. This is the plugin from denolehov / Vinzent03.
5. Install → Enable.

Step 2 — Install Git on our laptop

The plugin technically needs the Git program on our computer. This is a one-time install, after which we forget about it.

• Windows: download from git-scm.com/download/win, run the installer, all defaults — OK. Just Next-Next-Install.
• Mac: open Terminal once (Spotlight → Terminal), type git --version and hit Enter. Mac will offer to install Command Line Tools — agree.

After installation, close and reopen Obsidian — so the plugin can see Git.

Step 3 — SSH key, painless

An SSH key is like a “key to our apartment” that lets our laptop connect securely to GitHub. Without it, we’d have to type a password every time.

The easiest way to generate one — ask Claude:

Generate an SSH key for connecting to GitHub.
1. Create a new ed25519 key with the email [your email].
2. Show me where it lives and what to do next —
   where to paste the public key on GitHub.
3. Do not print the private key in the response.

The AI will create the key, show the file path, open the public part for copying. We grab that public string, copy it, head to GitHub → Settings (our avatar) → SSH and GPG keys → New SSH key → paste → Add.

Done. Now our laptop and GitHub know each other.

Step 4 — Link the vault to the repository

1. In Obsidian we open the Command Palette (Ctrl+P / Cmd+P).
2. We type “Obsidian Git: Clone an existing remote repo”.
3. The plugin will ask for a URL. Enter the SSH variant: git@github.com:[our-username]/obsidian-vault.git (notice: git@, not https://).
4. Run the command.

Alternatively — if the vault already exists and we don’t want to start from scratch, it’s easier to ask Claude:

My vault already contains files. Link it to an existing
private repo on GitHub: [URL]. Make the first commit
with all current files and push to the repository.

The AI will initialize, make the first commit, and push to GitHub. We check on the repository page in the browser — the files should appear.

Auto-commit every 10 minutes

Now the nice part: configure things so we don’t have to think about backup at all. The plugin will do it for us.

In Obsidian: Settings → Obsidian Git. We find the Auto section and configure:

• Vault backup interval (minutes): 10 — commit and push every 10 minutes.
• Auto pull interval (minutes): 10 — if we edit from another device (more on that in upcoming articles), it pulls in the changes.
• Pull updates on startup: enabled.
• Commit message: leave the default or use something custom like vault: {{date}}.

Done. Now every 10 minutes our vault quietly backs itself up. No terminal, no attention needed from us.

How to roll back to a week-old state

The best thing about git is the history. Each commit is a snapshot of the whole vault at a moment in time. If we accidentally deleted something important three days ago — we can bring it back.

Easiest way — ask Claude:

I accidentally deleted the file [file path] a few days ago
and have already made commits after that. Find the latest
version of this file in git history and restore it into
the current state of the vault.

The AI walks the history, finds it, restores it. If we want to do it ourselves — Obsidian Git has a Show diff command in the Command Palette, where we can scroll through commit history. But for the first time — it’s easier via AI, it knows the syntax.

Common mistakes

1. Made the repository public instead of private. The worst mistake — the whole internet sees our notes. We check right now: go to the repo page on GitHub. There should be a Private badge. If it says Public — Settings → at the bottom Danger Zone → Change visibility → Private.

2. Put big files in the vault (videos, ISOs, dumps). Git was built for text. If we push a 500 MB file — commits get slow, we hit GitHub limits. Big files — separately, in the cloud (Google Drive, Dropbox), not in the vault.

3. Conflicts when working from two devices at once. If we’re editing the same file on a laptop and a phone without sync between them — git creates a conflict. Not scary, but worth understanding. More on that in the sync article.

What’s next

Now the vault backs itself up. We can exhale — even if the laptop falls into a river, our notes from half a year of work sit in safe private storage with history. But there’s another question worth closing before we start dumping client documents in there: what we can and can’t put in the vault.

If we don’t want to miss it — follow me on LinkedIn, I announce each next piece there.