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Syncing your vault across devices

A Limestone vault is just a folder of Markdown notes, notebooks, and attachments. Limestone reads and writes that folder on your local disk — it has no built-in cloud accounts and talks to no sync service. So the way you sync a vault between machines is simple: put the folder inside any tool that mirrors a folder to your other devices, and open it in Limestone like any local folder.

That means you're not locked into one provider. Google Drive, Dropbox, an open-source tool you run yourself — if it keeps a real folder in sync, it works.

The one thing that makes this safe

Limestone keeps its search index (a SQLite database) outside the vault, on each machine, and rebuilds it from your files. So the folder you sync is only text and attachments — there's no database file riding the sync, which is the usual cause of "cloud sync corrupted my notes." Nothing for you to configure; it's just how vaults are built.

Three rules for smooth syncing

These apply to every tool below — they're the nature of folder sync, not a Limestone limitation:

  1. Mirror, don't stream. Some clients can keep files "online-only" as placeholders and download them on demand. Set the vault folder to be kept available offline / mirrored so Limestone can scan every file quickly.
  2. One machine at a time. Sync tools can't merge two simultaneous edits to the same note — they keep both as a "conflicted copy". Edit on one device, let it sync, then switch. (Limestone helps you resolve conflicts when they do happen — see below.)
  3. Let it finish syncing before opening the vault on another machine (wait for the client's "up to date" / green-check state).

Let Limestone find synced vaults automatically

You don't have to hunt for a synced shared vault's folder. Tell Limestone where your sync tool writes — a sync folder — and any vault that lands there is attached and shown as Open on its own:

  • In the shared-vault picker, expand Sync folders and Add sync folder, then pick your Google Drive / Dropbox / Syncthing directory.
  • Anything you keep under ~/Limestone is always scanned — point your sync tool there and there's nothing else to configure.

Limestone matches a synced folder to your organization's vaults by the id inside its .limestone/vault.json, so it only ever auto-attaches vaults your org already lists. (Sync folders are per-device, like the rest of your local settings.)

Tools that work

You only need one of these.

Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud Drive

Install the provider's desktop app, let it create its synced folder, and put (or open) your vault inside it. Point Limestone at that path. Use the provider's mirror / "available offline" setting for the vault folder rather than online-only streaming.

Syncthing — open-source, no server, no third party

Syncthing syncs a folder directly between your own devices over the network — there's no cloud account and no server in the middle, which makes it a great fit if you care about data sovereignty. Add the vault folder as a shared folder on each device and pair them. Syncthing keeps a real local copy on every device (no streaming to worry about).

Nextcloud / ownCloud — self-hosted

Run your own Nextcloud (or ownCloud) server and install its desktop sync client, which mirrors a folder to your machine just like Dropbox. Keep the vault folder set to sync locally (not "virtual files"). This gives you a server you control, with web access, on infrastructure you own.

Seafile — self-hosted

Seafile works the same way via its desktop sync client (use the syncing client, which keeps a normal local folder, rather than a drive-mount).

Power-user note. Raw network/FUSE mounts (rclone mount, WebDAV, SMB/NFS) can also present the folder, but they add latency and quirks around atomic file writes, so they're not recommended as your everyday setup. rclone bisync (a two-way folder sync) is a better fit if you go the rclone route.

When two devices collide: conflicted copies

If the same note is edited on two devices before they sync, your sync tool keeps both files, renaming one — for example:

  • Notes/Paper (conflicted copy 2026-07-26).md (Google Drive, Dropbox, Nextcloud)
  • Notes/Paper.sync-conflict-20260805-120000-AB12CD3.md (Syncthing)

Limestone recognizes these across the tools above, so a conflicted copy never shows up as a stray duplicate note. Instead it's surfaced for resolution: Limestone can fold non-overlapping edits together and let you pick a winner for anything that truly clashes. Resolved siblings are tidied into the vault's Trash (ADR-0056).

If you use a tool whose conflict filenames don't match the shapes above, the copy will still be safe on disk — it just won't be auto-detected. Let us know the naming and we can add it.

What not to sync

Nothing extra to exclude. Your provider syncs the whole vault folder, and the per-machine index lives outside it, so there's no database or cache to keep out of sync. Your API keys and encryption unlock material also live outside the vault (on each machine), so syncing the folder never carries your secrets to the cloud.