Obsidian - Vault Filetree

This is how I’ve currently set up my Obsidian vault filetree, that fits me best— after 6 years of SO MANY VARIATIONS lol

Root Folders

Since an average human remembers up to 7 distinct items, I try to limit my folders to 7.

These are the vault root-level folders that I use. I think of them as distinct modules, yet specialised and complimentary.

I don’t use these, but I can see some people having these root folders:

I find this setup really intuitive when filtering in the Obsidian Graph View or Search Panel. Or when running VS Code’s Find and Replace.

I have a main folder. Obsidian CEO Steph Ango keeps the rest of his files in the root. See his take, but keeping it in a main folder allows me to firstly have a clean Explorer sidebar lol. But then also, you can filter path:main in filters (Search, Graph, VS Code, etc.).

If you really really wanted, you could even just have system and main, if you nest main/clips and main/journal. I like keeping them separate, since I view these as separate “modes” of using Obsidian. They each distinctly have standard frontmatter formats and content structure, too.

I can expect to be in a specific “mental mode“ when operating in each of these folders.

Filetree

/ # root

- system
  
  # like your desktop's Recyling Bin, 30 days before delete
  - attic

	# this syncs to backblaze b2 storage bucket — see bottom of note
	- cloud-sync
		- notes # output from preprocessing notes to publish
			- "notes.zip"
		- public # exposed via assets.[domain].com
		- private # non-exposed attachments/assets

	# scripts
	- excalidraw

	# Dataview scripts (may revise to `dataview/`)
	- scripts

	# Bible as .md files for local reference
	- scripture
		- [00 - Book]
		  - "The Book of [Title].md" # e.g. "The Book of Genesis"
		  - "[Book] [Chapter].md" # e.g. "Gen 1"
	
	# Meta Bind plugin
	- meta-bind
	
	# templates directory
	- templates
		- scripts # Templater scripts
		- journal # daily, monthly, yearly
	
# daily journal: recurring temporal entries
- journal
	- [YYYY]
		- "Year of [YYYY].md" # yearly
		- [YYYY-MM]
			- "YYYY-MM.md" # monthly
			- "YYYY-MM-DD.md" # daily
	- records # longform event log, to standalone from a daily
	
# Obsidian Web Clipper - single-level directory
- clips
	
- main
  - [domain code] # I like to use 3-7 character shortcodes
		- [sub-domain code] # can nest as many as you like
			- "domain - sub-domain - file.md" # prefix filename, if you want
	- "file.md" # everything else lives at `main/*` root

- "index.md" # vault entry point & Breadcrumbs root

Attachments Folder

There are four location options for attachments:

• Vault folder
• Same folder as current file
• In subfolder under current folder
• In the folder specified below

Stages of sunsetting a note

A filesystem needs to be kept clean and lean, too much input causes bloat and noise, we need an effective workflow to handle different cases.

See Also

• Explaining system/cloud-sync → Public Digital Garden - Publishing Workflow
• Other filesystem archetypes
  • How I use Obsidian — Steph Ango
  • PARA
  • Johnny Decimal
  • Zettelkasten