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A vault is the Obsidian folder that Second Brain reads from and writes to. You can have multiple vaults and switch between them at any time.

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Opening an existing vault

1

Open the Vault Launcher

Click ↗ Switch vault in the sidebar. The Vault Launcher opens and replaces the chat interface.
2

Go to Recent Vaults

Select the Recent Vaults tab. All vaults that Second Brain knows about are listed here.
3

Open your vault

Find your vault in the list and click Open. If it is already active, the button reads Continue.
4

Wait for sync

The app syncs and indexes the vault. A spinner appears while this runs. Once complete, the chat interface loads with your vault active.

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Browsing and selecting a folder (Windows)

The Browse Local tab opens a native Windows File Explorer dialog. Click Browse via Windows Explorer…, select any folder on your machine, and click OK. Second Brain mounts that folder as a vault immediately.

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Creating a new vault

1

Open the Vault Launcher

Click ↗ Switch vault in the sidebar.
2

Go to Create New

Select the Create New tab.
3

Name your vault

Type a name in the input field. Names cannot contain the characters < > : " / \ | ? *.
4

Create and open

Click Create & open. The vault folder is created inside the app’s default workspace directory (obsidian-vaults/) and activated immediately.

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Searching recent vaults

In the Recent Vaults tab there is a search bar at the top. Type any part of a vault name or path to filter the list in real time.

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Switching vaults

Click ↗ Switch vault in the sidebar at any time. The Vault Launcher opens and lets you choose a different vault. Switching re-syncs the newly selected vault automatically.

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Re-syncing a vault

If you have added, renamed, or deleted files in your vault folder outside the app, the vault is re-synced automatically the next time you open it through the Vault Launcher.
The active vault path is saved to your .env file so it persists across restarts. You do not need to re-select your vault each time you open Second Brain.