Working with local files

Files are a projection of the vault, not the vault itself. Any computer can hold them, and a computer that does not still gets every note.

Open a vault folder

In Ewe Note, go to Settings and choose Open vault folder. Pick a folder of Markdown files — an Obsidian vault works as-is. The files become ordinary notes, and the browser keeps a writable link to the originals, so edits in Ewe Note write back to the same files on disk.

The structure comes with them: subfolders become folders, frontmatter, tags and [[wiki links]] are preserved, and .git, .obsidian, .trash and node_modules are skipped.

Signed in, those notes also sync like any other note. So the machine with the folder open has real files and sync; your phone has the same notes with no files involved.

Writable folder access needs a browser that supports the File System Access API — Chrome, Edge or another Chromium browser on the desktop. Elsewhere you can still import a folder, but edits will not write back to disk.

Files on more than one computer

Nothing limits files to one machine. Open the same vault's folder on a second computer and both hold real files, both sync through the same vault. They do not need the same folder path, or the same folder name.

For an always-on setup that does not depend on a browser tab being open, run the sync daemon from the repository instead:

npx tsx packages/ewe-note/src/cli/vault-sync.ts \
  --vault /path/to/vault \
  --room <room-id>

It watches the folder and the vault in both directions, and debounces rapid edits. Run it on each machine that should keep files. It is a command-line tool from the EweserDB repository, not a packaged app, so it suits a desktop you leave running.

When the same note changed in both places

The vault version wins and the other version is written next to it as Note (conflict 2026-01-01T12-00-00-000Z).md, then added to the vault too. Nothing is overwritten and nothing is thrown away; you merge the two by hand and delete the copy.

Attachments

Images and other attachments sync through object storage rather than by copying local paths, because a path on one computer means nothing on another. A device materialises the file when it needs it.

Next: Secure vaults.