Should you use multiple vaults in Obsidian?

Most Obsidian users should stick to a single vault because cross-vault linking, search, and “aha” moments break down once notes get compartmentalized. Within one vault, links are straightforward: type a note name, hit enter, and Obsidian can preview the target and even embed full notes or specific sections. Move that same workflow to a different vault and the experience falls apart—Obsidian won’t find notes outside the current vault folder, hover previews don’t work the same way, and embeds can turn into broken links. That limitation also extends to discovery: search and tools like Dataview can’t reliably operate across multiple vaults, so metadata and queries stay trapped inside each separate space.

The cost isn’t just convenience. Splitting notes into multiple vaults reduces serendipity—the chance that unrelated topics collide in a way that reveals new connections. When knowledge sits together, exploration of one area can naturally surface relevant material from another. The transcript gives a personal example: TTRPG notes weren’t initially connected to writing fiction, but once those notes were available in the same knowledge base, the overlap became obvious and helped both topics become richer in context. Fragmenting that material into separate vaults makes those cross-domain realizations less likely.

Still, multiple vaults aren’t dismissed outright. One practical reason is publishing control. Obsidian’s YAML front matter can mark individual notes with publish false, preventing them from being included when using Obsidian Publish. But if confidential information is scattered across many notes, manually tagging everything can become error-prone—so a separate “publishable” vault can be safer, letting the entire vault be shared without worrying about accidental disclosure. The transcript describes a patron-facing vault that’s published via Obsidian Publish, alongside another shared via a Dropbox folder for a weekly D&D game, where players can access session notes and create their own.

Security and stability also motivate separation. Work-related vaults can run with a more restricted plugin set, using Obsidian’s restricted mode to limit access to community plugins. Separate vaults are also recommended for testing plugins or other experimental setups, since unstable add-ons can risk data loss in a main workspace that’s relied on daily.

Finally, storage and asset management can justify additional vaults. GitHub-based versioning tends to handle text well but struggles with large binary files like images and maps. A separate reference vault can keep bulky, mostly non-authored assets—such as notes compiled from books and gaming systems—away from a smaller writing-focused vault. The transcript cites a reference vault with 5,550 notes and 1.67 gigabytes, framed as large enough to warrant its own space.

After weighing these trade-offs, the advice lands on a pragmatic rule: start with one vault, then add more only when there’s a strong reason—publishing boundaries, security needs, plugin experimentation, or asset-heavy organization.