Creating Your First Vault

How to create and set up your first Obsidian vault.

Creating Your First Vault

A Vault in Obsidian is simply a folder where all your notes are stored. Each vault is a separate workspace, allowing you to organize different projects or areas of your life.

Steps to Create Your First Vault

1. Open Obsidian.
2. On the welcome screen, click “Create new vault”.
3. Name your vault — choose something meaningful, like “Personal Notes” or “Work Projects”.
4. Choose a location on your computer where you want your vault folder to be stored.
5. Click “Create”.

Obsidian will create the folder and open it as your new workspace.

Understanding Vault Structure

• Your vault is just a folder on your computer. All your notes (Markdown files), images, and attachments are stored here.
• You can have multiple vaults for different purposes (e.g., work, study, personal).
• Each vault is independent — settings, plugins, and notes are not shared between vaults.

Adding Your First Note

1. Click the “New note” button (new note icon) in the sidebar.
2. Give your note a title, such as “Welcome to Obsidian”.
3. Start typing! Your notes are saved automatically as you write.

Organizing Your Vault

• Folders: Create folders to organize your notes by topic or project.
• Tags: Add tags to your notes for easy searching and grouping.
• Links: Start linking notes together using [[note name]] to build your knowledge network.

Tips

• You can move, rename, or delete notes and folders directly from within Obsidian or using your file manager.
• All your notes are stored as plain Markdown files, so you always have access to your data.

Offline, by default

Obsidian is designed to work offline, storing all your notes locally on your device. This means you can access and edit your notes without an internet connection. There are options to synchronize your notes across devices using third-party services like iCloud, Dropbox or Google Drive, but this is not required to use Obsidian effectively.

Obsidian also has a paid sync service that allows you to sync your notes across devices seamlessly.

By creating your first vault, you’ve set up the foundation for your personal knowledge base. In the next lessons, you’ll learn how to create, organize, and connect your notes to make the most of Obsidian’s features.

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