Platform Guide

ObsiKO is just as powerful whether you're on the web, desktop, or a mobile device, but there are inevitably a few small differences due to each platform's quirks. Want to find out what's different before you dive in? 😉

← Back to Home: ObsiKO 101

🌐 Light and Anywhere: Web (Browser)

• You'll need a smart browser that supports the modern File System Access API, like Chrome or Edge.
• The first time you open your folder, it'll ask, "Can I access this folder?" — just go ahead and hit Allow!
• The downside: due to browser limitations, Korean spell check, word-spacing correction, and the AI full agent (research gathering, automatic vault editing, etc.) aren't available yet. 🥲
• The upside: English spell check (LanguageTool) runs great on the web too, and thanks to ObsiKO's proxy, the Urimalsaem dictionary works on the web as long as you enter an API key. And just add an API key to unlock AI chat-only mode (conversation, reading documents, viewing images, web search, organizing notes) too! → Chat-only Mode (Mobile & Web)
• Search by meaning works on the web too! The search model runs inside your browser, so it needs no AI key and sends nothing over the internet — everything stays on your device. Just build the index once from 'Semantic search index' in Settings ▸ Convenience! (The first indexing takes a while as it downloads the model.) → Search & Navigation
• Sync between devices (GitHub) is not available in the browser version — so that a token with repository access is never kept inside a browser. Turn sync on in the desktop or phone app instead. “Share to the web” still works in the browser. → Settings & Themes
• On a shared computer, remember two things. ① “Don't remember in this browser” next to the AI key field — tick it and the key is erased when you close the tab. ② “Clear this browser's app data” in Settings ▸ below Dictionary — it wipes settings, the search index, version history, API keys and connections in one go (notes in your vault folder stay). Press it before you walk away.
• .html and .svg files inside the vault open as a download rather than a new tab (browser and phone). That keeps any script inside such a file from running in the same place as ObsiKO — in the desktop app they still open in your default program as before.

🖥 The Full, Powerful Experience: Desktop (Mac/Windows)

• If you want the best ObsiKO experience, the desktop app is the way to go, no question!
• A smart AI agent, word-spacing correction, the trusty Urimalsaem dictionary, even Git integration for developers! This is the most complete environment where you can enjoy 100% of ObsiKO's magic. 🚀
• What you need: macOS 12 (Monterey) or later on Mac, Windows 10 or later on PC. (That's the bar set when we moved the app onto the latest underlying engine — newer versions won't launch below it.)
• On Mac, photo background removal runs on-device too: when 'Remove background' in image editing meets a non-solid background, it switches to Apple Vision subject isolation automatically (macOS 14+) — the same engine as Finder's 'Remove Background'. Free and offline! (Windows and web handle solid backgrounds only.)
• 🎛️ Straight from the Mac Control Center (macOS 26+): Control Center ▸ Edit ▸ Add a Control ▸ ObsiKO offers Open · New note · Today's note · New mind map · Search · Start with a photo · Run routine ('Start with a photo' picks a photo and puts it at the top of today's note — it also shows on the calendar). If ObsiKO isn't listed, right-click the Desktop ▸ 'Edit Widgets…' once, close it, and look again (a known macOS bug). Once added, they open in one click from the menu bar's Control Center, and 'Run routine' runs the routine you pick (right-click the control to choose). Few note apps are there yet.
• Keep search results beside you: with a wide screen you can park the result list in the right sidebar and open hits one by one. → Search & Navigation

📱 A Miracle in Your Hand: iPhone / iPad

• Because of Apple's strict sandbox policy, you need to pick a single folder in the Files app to use as your vault. (Any folder you like works fine!)
• On narrow phone screens, to save space, the 3 view modes (source/reading/focus) are all tucked into one tidy dropdown menu. Pretty slick, right? → View Modes & Korean Input
• Floating formatting button: When the keyboard comes up, a small round button appears in a corner of the screen. Tap it and formatting tools unfold — bold, headings, lists, checkboxes, undo, and more — tap again to collapse them. The ↑ ↓ at the end move whatever your cursor is on up or down, taking its sub-items or whole section along — that's how you reorder without a keyboard. A tiny button that stays out of your way! (Choose Off/Auto/Always in settings → Settings & Themes)
• You can quickly drop photos or files from your gallery into a document or mind map with a drag-and-drop, or a copy-paste. Really convenient!
• Added an image card to your mind map? Stretch it with two fingers to zoom in on just the image inside the card. ✌️
• Unfortunately, direct file downloads and printing are blocked by Apple's policy. Instead, we'll safely save the exported file right into your vault folder — open it from the Files app or Safari to share it! (Notes are saved as HTML files.) → Export
• 🤖 AI on your phone now too!: The full agent, with research gathering and automatic vault editing, is still desktop-only, but just add an API key and you can chat in AI chat-only mode on iPhone/iPad too — have it read documents and images, search the web, and even organize your notes! The key is stored safely, encrypted in the iOS Keychain. → Chat-only Mode (Mobile & Web)
• Search by meaning works on your phone too: it runs right on the device, so no AI key is needed. Just build the index once from 'Semantic search index' in Settings ▸ Convenience! → Search & Navigation
• 🎙️ Transcription, free of charge: When turning a recording or voice memo into a note, iPhone and iPad use Apple's on-device speech recognition. No AI key, no fees, and your audio never leaves the device (no length limit either). If you do have a key, you can pick the more accurate cloud transcription instead. While it works, a bar at the bottom shows the progress, and you can Cancel a long one at any time (the original stays as it is). On iOS 26 and later each paragraph gets a timestamp like [0:11] — tap it to jump back to that moment in the recording. → Korean Writing Tools
• 🪄 Photo background removal, on-device too: when 'Remove background' meets a non-solid background (like a photo), it switches to Apple Vision subject isolation automatically (iOS 17+) — the same engine as the Photos app's sticker lift. No AI key, no fees, and the photo never leaves the device.
• 📎 Clip straight from the Share button: tap Share ▸ ObsiKO in any app and a card appears right there — pick New clipping, Add to today's note, or choose a note, and that's it (no jumping to the app). Web pages and selected text, plus photos, PDFs, and files. → Web Clipper
• ⌚ Quick memos from Apple Watch: Install the ObsiKO app on your watch and you can dictate a memo straight from your wrist. Even if your iPhone is off or out of range — once they reconnect, the queued memos make their way into your vault on their own (nothing gets lost!). 🎉
• Floating formatting button & input above the keyboard: When the keyboard pops up, the AI chat input box rises right above it too, so it never gets covered.
• Home screen widgets: iPhone and iPad get Shortcut, Shortcut+Search, Focus Timer, Recent Documents, Bookmarked Notes, Calendar, and Schedule widgets too (including Lock Screen widgets!). The checkboxes on the Schedule widget let you tick off to-dos without even opening the app. Widget colors follow your app theme. 🎨
• Font-app fonts work too: Tap 'Load installed fonts' in Settings ▸ Fonts and the system font picker appears — letting you pick even fonts installed via font apps and use them in the editor. Importing .ttf files directly works as well!
• Siri & the Shortcuts app 🗣️: You can use ObsiKO by voice. Three that work without opening the app — Quick Memo ("Hey Siri, take a note in ObsiKO" → what you say lands in your vault), Add to Today's Note ("Add to today's note in ObsiKO" → appended to the end of today's dated note), and Today's Schedule ("Today's schedule in ObsiKO" → Siri reads out what's left). Three that open the app — New Note, New Mind Map, and Search ("Search ObsiKO" → Siri asks "What are you looking for?" → say it and the results are right there).
• New: Add a task ("Hey Siri, add a task in ObsiKO" → "What task should I add?" → "prepare the meeting tomorrow and pay rent on friday") — saved without opening the app, then added as tasks to each date’s note when you open ObsiKO. "Tomorrow" is read from the day you said it, so it doesn’t shift if you open the app late, and an unclear time like "at 3" is kept exactly as said. Put the Task entry lock-screen widget on your lock screen to open the input bar in one tap; the Task entry shortcut can go in Control Center or on the Action Button from iOS 18.
• Saying it all in one breath — "Find my meeting notes in ObsiKO" — isn't possible yet. That's an iPhone-side limitation, so we built it as a single follow-up question instead. In the Shortcuts app you can fill the search term in advance and it runs in one step.
• New: Open a note — "Hey Siri, open Meeting Notes in ObsiKO" works in one sentence, because a note name can ride along. If several notes share the name, Siri asks which one. Typing a note title into iPhone search (Spotlight) — swipe down on the Home Screen — shows your ObsiKO notes too, and a tap opens the note (even if the app was closed).
  • Only titles and folder names go into the search index, never the body. Notes blocked with ai: deny, folders listed in .obsiko-ai-ignore, and chat logs stay out of it as well. Turn on screen lock and the index is wiped (it's rebuilt when you turn the lock off); you can also switch it off under Settings ▸ Convenience ▸ Find notes with Siri & Spotlight. Notes changed on another device via iCloud show up in search once you open ObsiKO.
• Siri search ("find meeting notes in ObsiKO") still can't take the search term in one sentence — that's an iPhone limitation, so Siri asks once. In the Shortcuts app you can pre-fill the term and it runs in one go.
• Shortcuts opens this up a lot: automations (append to today's note every night at 10), Home Screen buttons, the Action button (iPhone 15 Pro and later), and Lock Screen widgets. Drop the obsiko:// addresses below into an "Open URL" action and you get things Siri doesn't cover (graph view, timer, and more).
• On Apple Watch you can tap the mic and send a Quick Memo the same way.
• 🎤 Dictate on iPhone too: Tap the mic in the quick task bar, right-click (long-press) in a note ▸ Voice ▸ Dictate, use "Dictate into today's note" in the command palette, or the search box mic — and the words appear as you speak. When you're done, tap Done (in the task bar, tap the mic once more). iPhone has no separate speech screen, so ObsiKO listens itself — that's why it asks for microphone access the first time. Recognition happens on the device only.
• 🔴 Record straight from the Lock Screen (iOS 18+): Add "ObsiKO voice memo" to Control Center (or the Lock Screen buttons or the Action Button) once, and from the Lock Screen switch it on to record, off to save (it's a toggle, so you can see whether it's on). It also comes as a Lock Screen widget — long-press the Lock Screen ▸ Customize ▸ Add Widgets ▸ ObsiKO ▸ 'Voice memo (Lock Screen)', and each tap starts or saves a recording without opening the app. While recording, the time shows on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, where you can also Stop & save. Open ObsiKO and the recording is waiting, ready to play, in today's note for the day you started recording. Allow the microphone in the app once first (up to 30 minutes per recording). You can also put ObsiKO ▸ Record voice memo from the Shortcuts app on the Action Button. When a recording ends it is transcribed on-device into a new note like 'Recording 2026-09-16 14:03', linked from today's note (turn it off in Settings ▸ 'Transcribe recordings into a new note'). If recording can't start, the switch flips back off with a short reason, and ObsiKO repeats it once when you open the app (usually microphone access or the Live Activities setting).
• ⚡ Control Center shortcuts (iOS 18+): Edit Control Center ▸ Add a Control ▸ ObsiKO, and put Open · New note · Today's note · New mind map · Search · Start with a photo there to open them in one tap from the Lock Screen or Control Center (if locked, it continues after you unlock). Start with a photo opens the camera first and puts the shot at the top of today's note — on days with no events, the calendar shows that photo. The Home Screen widget ObsiKO Shortcuts (medium) has the same 8 on one card, and the Lock Screen (edit ▸ Add Widgets ▸ ObsiKO) offers circular widgets for Open, New note, Today's note, New mind map, Search, Start with a photo, Run routine and Voice memo (long-press ▸ Edit Widget to pick the routine). The same controls work on the Lock Screen buttons and the Action Button. The Run routine control lets you pick a routine when you add it (long-press the control) and then runs it right away — or tell Siri "Run morning cleanup routine in ObsiKO" (the list appears once you've opened ObsiKO).
• 🆕 What changes with iOS 27: ① In Apple Notes, select text and choose 'Copy as Markdown' — paste it into ObsiKO and headings, lists and checkboxes come through as they are (no import wizard needed). The other way round, copy from ObsiKO and paste into Notes and Notes turns it into formatting by itself. ② 'Write with Siri' (Writing Tools) above the keyboard opens in ObsiKO as a panel that shows the result first — apply it if you like it, or close it and your text stays untouched (and one undo brings back anything you applied). ③ In the Shortcuts app you can now describe a shortcut in words ("append to today's note in ObsiKO every night at 10") and it gets built for you — the Siri actions above and the obsiko:// links below are the building blocks. The new Siri uses the same actions. ④ Tell the new Siri "append this to my Meeting Notes in ObsiKO" — no set phrase needed; Siri picks the note and keeps the text, and it lands at the end of that note when you open ObsiKO. ⑤ The calendar can sit in the new full-page extra-large (4×6) widget on the Home Screen (the Recent Documents widget comes in medium only).

🤖 Now on Android Too! (Phone / Tablet)

• Any folder you want as a vault: Pick a folder from device storage or a cloud folder in the folder picker and use it as your vault right away. Opening an Obsidian vault folder works fine too!
• Start right away, no folder needed: Just tap 'New Note' on the welcome screen and a vault is automatically created in the device's default storage. You can always come back to it via 'Default Storage' at the top of the recent folders menu.
• 6 home screen widgets: You can place a Shortcut (2×2), Shortcut+Search, Focus Timer (pick a time with −/+ and start right away!), Recent Documents, Bookmarked Notes, Calendar, and Schedule widget on your home screen. On the Schedule widget, tap the checkbox to complete a to-do without even opening the app. Widget colors follow your app theme. 🎨
• Long-press the icon for instant actions ⚡: Press and hold the ObsiKO icon on your home screen and out unfold New note · Search · Today's note · New mind map. On Pixel phones they also appear when you type "ObsiKO" into app drawer search (the same picture as Spotlight on iPhone). Where they show up is up to your launcher, so on some phones they may not appear in search results — long-press works just about everywhere.
• Clip via Share: Tap Share ▸ ObsiKO in Chrome or elsewhere and a small card appears right there — pick New clipping, Add to today's note, or choose a note (searchable), and you're done! Photos, PDFs, and files work too, and it stashes them without opening the app so they land in your notes next time you open it. You can also send text straight from the menu that appears when you select it in another app. → Web Clipper
• Immersive mode: Hides the system bars at the top and bottom (status bar, gesture bar) and uses the whole screen. Want to check the time? Just swipe lightly from the edge of the screen — it appears briefly, then disappears again.
• 📸 Pulling text out of photos (OCR), right on the device: Extracting text from an image uses the same engine as Google Lens (ML Kit), running right on your phone. No AI key, no fees, and the photo never leaves the device. (If you need a more accurate result, you can still pick 'Read with AI'.)
• 🪄 Photo background removal, on-device too: when 'Remove background' meets a non-solid background, it switches to ML Kit subject isolation automatically — free, processed on the device. (On first use, Play services may take a moment to download the component — if a 'preparing' notice appears, just try again shortly.)
• ✍️ Font support: In Settings ▸ Fonts you can import .ttf font files directly, and 'Load installed fonts' lets you pick from the system fonts already on your device. (Fonts bought from the Samsung Theme Store are protected, so they can't be loaded.)
• 🖼️ Insert GIFs and stickers straight from the keyboard: Tap the GIF, sticker, or image button on your keyboard and that image is inserted right into your text. It's saved as a file in your vault and dropped in at the cursor.
• 🎤 Dictate: Speak instead of typing. Right-click (or long-press) in a note ▸ Voice ▸ Dictate drops it right at your cursor, and the command palette's "Dictate into today's note" appends it to today's dated note. The search box gets a mic too, so you can search by voice. Your device's own speech screen does the listening, so ObsiKO never asks for microphone permission. (On devices with no speech app the mic button simply doesn't appear — use your keyboard's mic instead.)
• This is not the same as Record voice memo next to it. That one saves an audio file into your vault (and can transcribe it with AI); this one gives you text right away, free and with no AI key.
• Speaking to ObsiKO without opening the app — the way Siri does on iPhone — isn't possible on Android yet. Google doesn't support Korean for it, so rather than half-promise, we left it out.
• 📝 Set as your default notes app (Android 14+): In Settings ▸ System integration you can register ObsiKO as the default notes app. Then system note actions — the 'Note' button on the lock screen or in Quick Settings, S Pen screen memos — all open a new ObsiKO note!
• On a tablet: You can pin the right sidebar with the pin (📌) button to dock it next to the editor (same as on iPad). Drag the edge to resize its width too. With it pinned you can also park a list of search results beside your note and work through them one by one. → Search & Navigation
• Search by meaning works here too — it runs on the device and needs no AI key. → Search & Navigation

🌟 Tips That Apply Everywhere (This Is the Key Part!)

• Every note you create in ObsiKO is just a plain, well-behaved .md (text) file or a .canvas file.
• So if you set your devices to share the same folder (like an iCloud Drive folder), you can experience the miracle of picking up on your iPhone in the bathroom exactly where you left off writing on your Mac!
• And of course, the last folder and tabs you had open are faithfully remembered and restored on each device. → Getting Started
• Come across great material while browsing the web? Tuck it right into your vault on the spot with the Web Clipper! On desktop browsers, use the right-click menu or toolbar (even region screen capture!); on iPhone, iPad, and Android, clip instantly with the share button. 📎 → Web Clipper

🔗 Open ObsiKO straight from another app (obsiko://)

Widgets, Siri shortcuts, Android's icon long-press, and the share button all call ObsiKO through an address. It looks like https://, except it starts with obsiko://. Drop one into the Shortcuts app or any app's "open URL" field and you can use them exactly the same way!

There's also obsiko://clip, which the Web Clipper uses to hand its catch over to ObsiKO — the share button handles that one for you, so you'll never need to type it. → Web Clipper

💡 Ideas: automate "open obsiko://daily at 8am every morning" in the Shortcuts app and today's journal is waiting the moment you pick up your phone. ⏰ Or put an obsiko://timer?minutes=25&start=1 icon on your home screen for one-tap pomodoro. 🍅

🔒 Only the actions listed here work. Opening, creating, searching, timers — the fixed set — and a link can't edit or delete the contents of a note. Hand ObsiKO an address it doesn't recognize and it simply does nothing. 😌

☁️ Sync across devices with a cloud folder (iCloud · Dropbox · Google Drive)

ObsiKO can use any cloud folder as its vault (you don't need to turn on any separate sync feature — just open that same folder on multiple devices and that is your sync). It also quietly handles the little quirks of cloud folders for you.

• Files not downloaded yet? No worries ☁️: iCloud and friends sometimes evict the contents of files you haven't used to save space. Such files show up in the file tree with a small ☁️ badge, and tapping (opening) one automatically re-downloads it. (They never vanish from the tree!)
• Pre-download entire vault: hit Settings ▸ Convenience ▸ 'Pre-download entire vault · Download now' to fetch every not-yet-downloaded file at once. It's a good idea to pre-download so the graph view and full-text search work properly.
• Keep files downloaded: turn on 'Keep files downloaded' in the same Settings ▸ Convenience, and whenever a file gets evicted it's automatically re-downloaded, keeping your vault fully local. (Intact even offline!)
• Edited the same note on two devices? — Conflict notice: if you edit the same note on two devices, the cloud sometimes creates a conflict copy. ObsiKO detects this and shows a small banner at the top, letting you choose [Merge] · [Compare] · [Keep mine] · [Take theirs] (it never overwrites your edits without asking).
• Bases (.base) get handled a little differently. The table is drawn from your vault notes, so the original and the conflict copy look identical. For Bases the button becomes [Compare sources], and it opens both sides as the raw file (YAML) so you can actually see the difference. [Merge] is the one to reach for here — if you hit [Take theirs] just because they look the same, the filters and columns you tweaked on this side can quietly disappear.
• AI chat transcript (_ObsiKO/chats/) conflicts take one press of [Merge]. Transcripts are only ever added to, so both devices' conversations are all kept in one file and the copy goes to the trash after the result is checked. If the same turn differs, both are kept; if it's unclear, you get the side-by-side comparison above instead. → Personal Memory
• ✨ Don't throw either side away — [Merge]: "Keep mine" and "Take theirs" both mean discarding one side's work entirely. If you wrote one paragraph on your phone and five on your laptop, either button hurts. So hit [Merge] and pick what to keep line by line.
• If you edited different places, there's almost nothing to do. Lines that exist on only one side are kept from both automatically, and ObsiKO tells you: "You edited different places. Both sides are kept — just review and apply." Skim it, press [Merge as shown], done!
• You're only asked about spots edited differently on both sides. Each one offers [Mine] · [Theirs] · [Both] · [Neither], and your choice is highlighted immediately so you can see which side wins. The default is the safe one: yours.
• Long stretches of identical text are folded away as ⋯ 12 identical lines ⋯ — so you can focus on what actually differs. 😉
• The merged result is saved into the original note and the conflict copy is cleaned up. Changed your mind? [Cancel] or Esc backs out with nothing touched.
• 💡 Open a file that hasn't downloaded yet (because you're offline) and it tells you "This file isn't downloaded yet" — so don't mistake it for an empty note! Open it again when you're online and it downloads normally.

These work on iPhone, iPad, and Mac when using a cloud folder (on Android and the web, the folder provider handles it). → For how to open a folder, see Getting Started

🎉 Wow, thanks so much for following along all the way here. You're now a full-fledged ObsiKO master! 👏

One last page, just in case → Emergency Guide

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