Obsidian Tip - iCloud Keep Downloaded for faster startup
Canonical version: Obsidian Tip - iCloud Keep Downloaded for faster startup.
If you sync your Obsidian vault through iCloud Drive, startup can be painfully slow because iCloud lazily downloads file contents only when something tries to read them. Obsidian scanning thousands of notes on launch triggers that download cascade.
Fix: set the vault folder to Keep Downloaded in Finder (right-click the folder → Keep Downloaded). The files stay materialised locally instead of being placeholders, so Obsidian doesn't wait on iCloud to hydrate each note at startup.
The better long-term answer is Obsidian Sync — official, end-to-end encrypted, works offline, supports plugin development, and avoids iCloud's quirks (lazy download, occasional conflict files, hidden-folder limitations). iCloud is fine as a poor-person's sync, but Keep Downloaded is essentially a workaround for a limitation Obsidian Sync doesn't have.
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