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Obsidian Mobile Slow to Open on iPhone and Android

Ongoing iOS, Android Updated October 21, 2026

Quick answer

Obsidian's mobile apps load the whole vault index on launch, so large or attachment-heavy vaults can take 5-12 seconds or freeze. Keeping the vault in local app storage, trimming attachments and plugins, and updating to the latest version help most.

Most likely fix: Update Obsidian.

Symptoms

The app shows a splash screen for several seconds, freezes on launch, or lags when opening a note from search.

Why it happens

  • Large vaults (thousands of files or many media attachments)
  • Vault stored in iCloud and being re-downloaded on launch
  • Plugins loading at startup
  • Large HTML or base64-image files saved as .md
  • Version-specific regressions (e.g. a 2026 report of slow file reading on Android 16)

How to fix it

Try these in order — the most common fix is first.

  1. 1. Update Obsidian

    1. Install the latest version from the App Store / Google Play - Obsidian has been reworking mobile startup, and some slowdowns were version-specific

  2. 2. Move the vault to local storage

    1. On iPhone, store the vault 'On My iPhone' and sync with Obsidian Sync instead of iCloud Drive

  3. 3. Disable or defer plugins on mobile

    1. Settings > Community plugins > disable plugins you don't need on the phone
    2. Test with Restricted mode to measure the difference

  4. 4. Shrink the vault

    1. Move large attachments out, or use selective sync to skip file types on mobile
    2. Check for very large .md files (exported HTML, embedded images)
    3. Consider a small separate capture vault for quick notes

This guide also covers

  • obsidian mobile slow
  • obsidian android slow to open
  • obsidian iphone slow to load
  • obsidian mobile startup time

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