Syncthing not actually syncing

Support
1

I am attempting to use SyncThing to sync a folder I use with Obsidian.md. When I initially set this up, on a Mac, It is able to find the folder, and says it’s up to date. I then configure my PC with SyncThing. I ensure that both computers can see the other device, and then I share the folder from the Mac to the PC. I then accept the folder on the PC side, set up the folder location, and watch it sync the files. This part works entirely correctly, every time I try it.

The part that doesn’t work is when I update a file on either side, Mac or PC. If I update a file, it is not copied to the other computer no matter how long I wait. I can see that the auto-scan has run and it has detected the change, it even shows up in the All Changes section, however when I check the computers they are never actually in sync with the changes. I know there is a minimum time between syncs that, I believe, is an hour. I’ve manually hit the Sync button on both sides before, I’ve tried waiting the hour, I’ve even tried waiting over night, but no matter how long I wait, it does not seem to be able to actually update the second computer(the one that does not have the new changes in the file).

Am I doing something wrong? Is there a log file I can look at from the scan process to see what, if anything, is going wrong? Is my issue because I’m running two different operating systems maybe? I’m at a loss. I had heard really good things and was optimistic towards using this as a way to keep my Obsidian notes synced between PCS (I don’t ever use them both at the same time, and there’s always a few hours at minimum between the switchover), but I’m having 0 luck.

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Welcome here @DiegoAtravesar !

It is spelled Syncthing. (No capital T in the middle.)

As to your problem, can you please share screenshots where the folder is expanded.

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Here is the folder expanded on Syncthing(no Big T, updated Title) on WinPC.

image
image1184×708 43.7 KB

Here is the folder expanded on Syncthing on iMac.

Screen Shot 2025-06-23 at 11.11.48 AM
Screen Shot 2025-06-23 at 11.11.48 AM2532×1572 407 KB

I will acknowledge that WinPC and iMac show different files as “Last Changed” for some reason.

There is some chatter on both sides in Recent Changes where files in the .obsidian folder show they’re updating, however WinPC only lists WinPC changes and iMac only lists iMac changes, and technically, no changes should have been made aside from me launching the program so I’m assuming that’s why it says they’ve “changed”.

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This is expected. The “last changed” field only lists remote changes that were pushed to the device in question. It doesn’t list changes done locally on the same device.

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5

Interesting.

Did some more testing, and if I exclude Obsidian from the process and just access my files with a notepad, I can see the sync works, and at least for now it does seem to go both ways.

Well, Thanks for your help. Looks like I’m going to have to figure out why Obsidian is caching files, as direct edits are moving across systems.

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