Where your notes come from

mdvju doesn’t store or sync your notes. It reads them where they already are. This page explains where that can be.

One folder at a time

mdvju reads one source at a time: one folder of Markdown notes, such as your Obsidian vault. Pick it in Settings › Notes Source › Folder on this device.

To read a different folder, pick that one instead. mdvju then reads the new folder, and it starts empty: no favourites, no Homepage, and its own last note. Pick the first folder again and its favourites, Homepage and last note are still there. “The same folder” means the same place on your phone, not the same name, so a folder that was moved or renamed counts as a new one.

Recent notes always show the folder you’re reading, because they’re the notes in it that changed most recently.

Which folders work

Any folder you can see in the Files app under:

  • iCloud Drive, including Obsidian vaults stored in iCloud;
  • On My iPhone, including folders that belong to other apps, such as Obsidian’s.

Those are the supported places. If you pick a folder somewhere else in Files, for example one that Working Copy or Dropbox provides, mdvju tells you: “This location isn’t officially supported. It may work, but we can’t guarantee it. If something doesn’t work, let us know.” Choose Use anyway to try it, or Choose another. OneDrive folders can’t be picked at all.

How changes reach mdvju

mdvju shows whatever is in the folder right now. Something else gets the changes there:

  • iCloud Drive: iCloud brings changes in from your other devices. Notes it hasn’t downloaded yet are still listed, and download when you open them.
  • Obsidian Sync: Obsidian syncs its vault when the Obsidian app runs. mdvju sees the changes after that.
  • Other sync apps (Syncthing apps, Git apps and so on): the same idea. Once the app has updated the folder, mdvju sees it.

mdvju picks up changes while it’s open, and when you come back to it. See Seeing what changed.

Opening a single Markdown file

You can open one Markdown file from anywhere, without making it your folder:

  1. In the Files app, find the .md file.
  2. Touch and hold it, tap Share, then tap mdvju in the row of apps.

mdvju opens just that file. It doesn’t look at the folder around it, so links to other notes may not lead anywhere. This keeps working after the free trial, too. After the trial, web, email, phone and text-message links in the file still open. Links to other notes don’t take you anywhere: tapping one shows “Unlock mdvju to follow links to other notes”, with an Unlock button.

Coming later: your own server

A self-hosted mdvju server is planned, so mdvju can read notes from a server you run yourself instead of a folder on your phone. It will be free and open source, published on GitHub once it’s tested and packaged. It isn’t available yet; see What’s next.