Open an existing Obsidian vault

An Obsidian vault is a folder of Markdown files, so Oyma opens it directly. Choose Open vault…, pick the vault folder, and your notes appear with their folders, links and formatting intact.

Open the vault

1. Press ⌘⇧O, or choose File › Open Vault…. On first launch you can also click Open vault… in the welcome dialog.
2. Select the folder that contains your vault: the one with the .obsidian folder inside it.
3. Click Open. Oyma lists every .md file and builds its search index on your Mac.

There is no import step. Nothing is copied, renamed or rewritten when you open the vault. From then on, Oyma reopens this vault each time it starts.

What works

Markdown and Obsidian syntax. CommonMark and GitHub-style Markdown (tables, task lists, strikethrough, fenced code) display in a live preview. So do the Obsidian additions most vaults rely on:

• Wikilinks: [[Note]], [[Note|display text]] and [[Note#Heading]].
• Callouts: > [!note], > [!warning], > [!tip] and the other common types. Types Oyma doesn’t recognize show in the note style.
• Highlights (==text==), comments (%%hidden%%), footnotes and #tags, including nested tags like #project/alpha.
• YAML frontmatter at the top of a note, shown as a properties block.

Markdown basics has the full list.

Links between notes. Wikilinks resolve by note title, as they do in Obsidian, regardless of which folder the note is in. Backlinks, the outline and the graph are built from your existing links. When you rename a note in Oyma, wikilinks pointing to it are updated across the vault. See Links, backlinks and the graph.

Images. ![[image.png]] and ![alt](image.png) display inline, and ![[image.png|240]] sets the width. Images you paste or drop into a note are saved in an attachments folder at the top of the vault.

What’s different

• Image paths are read from the top of the vault. ![[photo.png]] displays when photo.png is in the vault’s top folder, or when the link includes its folder, such as ![[assets/photo.png]]. Obsidian’s short links to images stored in subfolders may not display. The file is still there, and Obsidian still shows it.
• Note embeds show as a link chip. ![[Another note]] appears as a chip you can ⌘-click to open, not as the other note’s content inline.
• Frontmatter aliases aren’t used to resolve links. Use [[Note|display text]] for alternative link text.
• Math and Mermaid show as source. $...$, $$...$$ and Mermaid code blocks display as plain text.

What’s left alone

• The .obsidian folder. Your Obsidian settings, themes, hotkeys and workspace layout aren’t used, and Oyma doesn’t change them.
• Community and core plugins. None of them run. Content generated by a plugin, such as Dataview or Tasks queries, shows as the raw text in the file.
• Canvas files. .canvas files aren’t listed or opened. Only .md files appear in the notes list.
• Non-Markdown files such as PDFs aren’t listed, though they stay in the folder.

Files Oyma adds

Oyma keeps its own data in a hidden .app folder inside the vault: folder icons, recovery backups and meeting recordings. Deleted notes move to a hidden .trash folder, the same name Obsidian uses for its own vault trash. Obsidian ignores hidden folders, so neither shows up there.

If you use Git or a backup tool on the vault, you may want to exclude .app/recordings, since audio files can be large.

Using both apps

You can switch between Obsidian and Oyma freely: both edit the same files. Oyma watches the folder and picks up changes made elsewhere. If a note changes on disk while you’re editing it, Oyma tells you and asks which version to keep.

Next, see Getting started for the shortcuts that cover daily use.