Syncing vaults across devices

Anthracite does not ship cloud sync yet (Anthracite Cloud is a future phase). Your vault is a plain folder on disk — you can copy or sync it yourself with iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Synology, git, or any file sync you already use. This page explains what travels well, what to exclude, and the rules that keep SQLite and watchers from corrupting your data.

What syncs well

Copy or sync the whole vault folder (or at least these paths):

Path	Why
`raw/`	Immutable captured sources
`wiki/`	Processed knowledge pages
`tasks/`	Board task files
`ANTHRACITE.md`	Policy spine
`.anthracite/config.json`	LLM/OCR/connector settings
`.anthracite/state.json`	Connector cursors, ingest token, webhook secret

Everything above is plain files. Anthracite on a second Mac can open the same folder and keep working.

Safe to exclude or let diverge

Path	Why
`.anthracite/index.db`	Full-text search index — rebuildable by processing again / reindexing on the new machine
Port numbers in `.anthracite/state.json`	Machine-specific loopback ports

If index.db is missing after sync, the app rebuilds search as you process and query. You do not need to copy it between Macs.

Bring-your-own sync options

iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, Synology, etc.

Put the vault folder inside your synced directory (e.g. ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Anthracite/Personal).
One machine at a time. Quit Anthracite on Mac A before opening the vault on Mac B. Running the same vault on two machines simultaneously risks SQLite corruption and conflicting file watchers.
After sync completes on the new Mac, register the vault in Settings → Vault if Anthracite does not already know that path.

Git

Good for wiki/, tasks/, and ANTHRACITE.md — text diffs and history.
Add .anthracite/index.db to .gitignore (binary, rebuildable).
Be careful with large binaries in raw/ (PDFs, scans, audio); use Git LFS or sync raw/ via cloud storage instead of committing everything.

Anthracite does not validate or merge conflicts from external sync. If two copies diverge, treat it like any shared folder: pick a winner or merge files manually before opening the vault.

Per-machine registry

~/.anthracite/state.json (in your home directory, not inside the vault) lists vaults this Mac has opened and which one was last active. It does not sync with iCloud or Dropbox — each Mac remembers its own vault list and paths.

After copying a vault to a new machine:

Open Anthracite.
Go to Settings → Vault → Add vault and point at the synced folder (or use Create vault in the new location if you prefer a fresh registry entry).

Hard rules

Never run the same vault on two machines at once — SQLite index + folder watchers assume exclusive access.
Quit Anthracite before switching devices when using cloud sync.
Secrets stay local — API keys live in the macOS keychain per machine; you may need to re-enter credentials on a new Mac even if config.json synced.

Future: Anthracite Cloud

A later Anthracite Cloud release will add encrypted sync, conflict UI, and always-on remote webhooks. Until then, BYO file sync is the supported path for multi-device use.