Obsidian, DEVONthink & Other Tools

Local file manager integrations

Elephas integrates with local knowledge management tools that store files on your Mac. Point a workspace at a folder managed by these tools, and Elephas indexes the contents.

Obsidian

Obsidian stores your notes as Markdown files in a local vault folder. To index your Obsidian vault in Elephas:

1. Open your workspace and click Add Files
2. Navigate to your Obsidian vault folder (usually in ~/Documents/ or a custom location)
3. Select the vault folder. Elephas indexes all Markdown files and their content

Elephas reads the .md files directly. Links between notes, tags, and frontmatter are treated as text content and are searchable.

DEVONthink

DEVONthink stores documents in its own database format. To use with Elephas:

1. In DEVONthink, select the documents or groups you want to index
2. Export them to a folder on your Mac (File > Export > Files and Folders)
3. In Elephas, add that folder to your workspace

Alternatively, you can index the DEVONthink internal database folder directly, but exporting gives you more control over which documents are included.

Bear Notes

Bear stores notes in its own format. Elephas can index Bear notes through the integrations panel:

1. Open your workspace and click Add Integration
2. Select Bear Notes
3. Grant access when prompted
4. Select the tags or notes you want to index

Logseq and Roam Research

Both Logseq and Roam store notes as local files (Markdown or JSON). Export your notes to a folder and add that folder to your Elephas workspace, just like with Obsidian. Elephas indexes the text content of all supported file types in the folder.

Keeping integrations updated

When you edit notes in these tools, the changes are not automatically reflected in Elephas. Open your workspace settings and click Refresh to re-index updated files.