Obsidian Autosave Control

This plugin gives you full control over how Obsidian.md saves your notes.

By default, Obsidian saves every ~2 seconds while you type. While convenient, this behavior can cause issues such as:

• Sync conflicts with cloud storage (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, Proton Drive, ...)
• Performance problems with large files
• Issues when working on network drives
• Increased battery usage

This plugin allows you to change that behavior.

Modes

1. Delayed Autosave

• You type normally.
• The save timer resets on every edit (per file).
• Obsidian saves once, only after you stop editing for the configured delay (by default 10 seconds).

This reduces unnecessary writes and avoids constant file updates.

2. Autosave Disabled

• No automatic saving occurs.
• Files are saved only when you manually trigger a save.
• You must use the Save File command (assign a hotkey if needed).
• Closing a note or quitting Obsidian with unsaved changes will show a warning.

Workspace Layout Saves

• Obsidian also saves layout state to .obsidian/workspace.json.
• Switching notes can update that file even when note content does not change.
• This plugin can delay those writes too.

Status Indicator

The plugin shows save state in the status bar:

🔵 Blue — Unsaved changes pending
🟢 Green — All changes saved

Colors and the size of the icon can be customized in settings.

Settings

Save Delay

• Defines how long Obsidian waits after you stop editing before saving
• Only available in Delayed Autosave mode

Disable Autosave Completely

• Turns off all automatic saving
• Hides the delay setting
• Requires manual saves

Defer workspace layout saves

• Delays writes to .obsidian/workspace.json
• Helps reduce sync activity when switching notes
• Works independently of note autosave mode

Workspace layout save delay

• How long to wait before writing deferred layout changes
• Only used when Defer workspace layout saves is enabled
• Separate from the note save delay

Saved status color

• Status dot color when all changes are saved.

Pending status color

• Status dot color while changes are not saved.

Status icon size

• Size of the status bar dot in pixels.

Installation

1. Download the latest release from GitHub:
   https://github.com/mihasm/obsidian-autosave-control/releases

   Please download obsidian-autosave-control.zip, not the source code.

2. Extract the .zip file. It should contain a main.js file and manifest.json file.

3. Copy the contents into: your-vault/.obsidian/plugins/autosave-control.

4. In Obsidian:

• Open Settings → Community Plugins
• Enable the plugin

Important Notes

• Unsaved changes are kept in memory until written to disk.
• If Obsidian or your system crashes before saving, changes may be lost.
• If workspace layout deferral is enabled, recent layout state can also be lost after a crash until workspace.json is flushed.

Testing

Desktop

Setup:

• Run npm install.
• The first test run downloads Obsidian into .obsidian-cache/.

Run tests:

npm run wdio

Run one specific test:

npx wdio run ./wdio.conf.mts --spec ./test/specs/autosave-control.e2e.ts --mochaOpts.grep "stops typing and waits for exactly one save after the configured delay"

Android

Setup:

• You need the Android command-line SDK tools installed, specifically:
  • adb
  • emulator
• You need at least one Android Virtual Device already created on your machine.
• By default this suite tries to start an emulator named obsidian_test.
• If you use a different AVD name, export OBSIDIAN_ANDROID_AVD before running the suite.

npm run wdio:android

with different AVD:

export OBSIDIAN_ANDROID_AVD="avd_name" && npm run wdio:android

License

MIT — see LICENSE