Obsidian Portable Manager creates and cares for a complete portable Windows Obsidian workspace from inside Obsidian. Install it with BRAT in any vault, choose a flash drive or folder, and it copies the vault, installs the signed base runtime and launcher, closes the original session, and opens the portable copy.
- Creates a portable workspace at a user-selected drive or folder.
- Copies an existing vault without moving or modifying the source.
- Transfers an existing portable workspace to another location and reopens it.
- Discovers portable packages at any folder depth, including legacy drive-root layouts.
- Verifies the expected portable package layout and host CPU architecture.
- Lets Obsidian's built-in updater exclusively manage Public and Catalyst app versions inside the portable Data profile.
- Automatically stages portable-framework updates for the next normal close.
- Provides one-click copy, launcher repair, and base-runtime recovery actions.
- Verifies installer size, Authenticode signer, extracted version, and PE type.
- Updates the root launcher, maintenance helper, and extraction tools from this repository's versioned framework release.
- Stages replacements, waits for Obsidian to close, retains rollback copies, reports the result on the next launch, and then removes transient rollback and staging files after that successful launch.
Routine framework maintenance never replaces App, Data, the vault,
Remotely Save, other plugin settings, or portable.ini. Base-runtime repair is
an explicit advanced action and never changes Obsidian's Public/Catalyst
selection. The launcher repairs the portable vault registry and keeps built-in
app updates enabled. Generated rollback files stay inside the package during a
swap; the drive root contains only the current Obsidian Portable.exe launcher.
Add Giblicious/obsidian-portable-manager in BRAT and enable the plugin. On a
fresh vault, the guided setup screen opens automatically. The only choice is
the destination location; setup, validation, closing, and relaunch are handled
by the manager. After setup, use Obsidian's normal Settings > About controls
for app updates and Catalyst switching. Portable Manager maintains only the
portable launcher/framework, so the two systems cannot conflict.
New packages use this package-relative layout and can live anywhere:
Obsidian Portable/
Obsidian Portable.exe
Vault/<vault name>/
Apps/Portables/ObsidianPortable/
App/Obsidian.exe
Data/
Maintenance/PortableMaintenance.ps1
Tools/7z.exe
portable.ini
portable-manifest.json
Existing drive-root packages and packages using manifest.json remain
supported and are migrated during successful maintenance or transfer.
Pushes and pull requests must pass the build, tests, public-content audit, and
Windows launcher/helper checks. A semantic version tag is accepted only when
all version files agree. The release publishes the standard Obsidian plugin
assets plus portable-framework.zip and its SHA-256 checksum.
Official Obsidian binaries are never stored in this repository or framework archive. 7-Zip is redistributed under its included license solely to extract the architecture-specific payload from the official Obsidian installer.
npm ci
npm run check
See SECURITY.md before changing downloads, filesystem paths, process handling, or rollback behavior.