Most of the time, you'll probably be creating vaults in Obsidian. However, there are many reasons you might want to open an *existing* folder as a vault: - You've closed a vault you created in Obsidian, and you want to open it again. - You have a folder of Markdown files (commonly used for documentation and publishing) and want to be able to view and modify them in Obsidian. - You've downloaded someone else's Obsidian vault and want to see how they do things. - You [[Syncing in Obsidian|synced]] your vault to another device using [[Other syncing options|services other than Obsidian Sync]] and you want to continue modifying it on this device. ## Instructions 1. Download the vault to this device (and unzip it if necessary). 2. Open Obsidian and click on the *Open another vault* icon (third from the bottom on the toolbar). 3. Instead of clicking on *Create a new vault*, click *Open folder as vault*. 4. Navigate to the folder you unzipped the file in, select it, and click *Open*. The new vault, along with all the plugins and settings it contained, should be open! ## Related - [Opening and creating vaults](https://help.obsidian.md/User+interface/Vault+switcher)