obsidian-vault-location

Obsidian stores active vault paths in ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/obsidian.json. The main vault here lives at ~/Documents/notes/private_writing, containing journal and writing notes as Markdown files.

Run find "$HOME/Documents/notes/private_writing" -iname "*keyword*" -not -path "*/.obsidian/*" to match note filenames by keyword. Quote paths because note titles contain spaces, and exclude the .obsidian config directory.

The Obsidian application is installed at /Applications/Obsidian.app. Its configuration, including the list of active vault paths, is stored in ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/obsidian.json.

The vault contains monthly journal folders like 01-2026, a timeless folder for permanent notes, a private folder for sensitive notes, a prompts folder, and a keyboard_shortcuts folder. All notes are Markdown files.

The .obsidian directory inside the vault stores workspace settings, not notes. Add -not -path "*/.obsidian/*" to the find command to exclude it and return only actual Markdown notes.