Obsidian version of LAS causes big memory load (EDIT: Omnisearch is a memory hog)

Life Admin System
1

Hi friends!

Been getting set up with the LAS in Obsidian. I have the deeply nested version. I’m noticing that something about the setup of the LAS in Obsidian is causing some pretty big memory usage. Did some testing, here’s what I found:

  1. Deeply nested LAS with all my fave plugins enabled and notes brought over, ~1,600 notes: using 2.09 GB of RAM. I usually have two separate instances of Firefox running simultaneously (sue me) and this is enough memory that it’s competing with them and slowing down my computer (2023 MacBook Air) while I have Obsidian open.
  2. Deeply nested LAS in restricted mode (all community plugins disabled), same number of notes: 1.64 GB.
  3. Partially nested LAS, plugins enabled, ~190 notes: 129 MB.
  4. Comparison Obsidian vault, plugins enabled, medium folder nesting, ~1,300 notes: 743 MB.
  5. Comparison Obsidian vault, plugins enabled, very little folder nesting, ~150 notes: 188 MB.

Obviously the community plugins are contributing to memory creep (about half a GB’s worth), but it also looks like something about the deep folder nesting of the LAS is causing issues. If you look at 1 and 4, they have similar numbers of notes (and all the files from 4 are in 1, so it’s not an issue with file types), they both have plugins enabled, but 1 has way more folders and uses more than twice the RAM.

Really curious to hear other people’s experiences with the LAS in Obsidian, especially the deeply nested version. I really like this version, it makes the most sense with my brain, but I may switch over to the partially nested version if I can’t get this to use way less RAM. I checked the Obsidian forums but haven’t seen anything super relevant, definitely welcome anyone pointing me in a useful direction there! Just to be clear, I believe this is an Obsidian issue, not a JD issue, but I’d love to see if there is a way to solve it.

- Elyse

2

Interesting. I just downloaded a fresh version of SBS (~5x more folders than LAS), installed Folder Notes just so I have some plugins going, fully nested version, and it’s using <150MB. But that’s not with anything else in there, just the base SBS notes.

Maybe turn all your other plugins off then back on one by one and see if you can isolate the issue?

3

I just updated and restarted my computer, opened my LAS vault, turned on community plugins, and memory usage jumped right back up to ~2GB. Will try what you said and report back!

4

The culprit has been located!

(Memory usage didn’t go back down to where it started in between flipping these plugins on and off, so look more at differences between plugins as opposed to overall usage, especially as you go down the list.)

No plugins turned on: ~165MB

Advanced Tables: ~210MB

Annotator: ~345MB

Dataview: ~300MB

Editing Toolbar: ~338MB

Excalidraw: ~400MB

Folder Notes: ~430MB

Linter: ~436MB

Omnisearch: ~1.76GB

PDF++: ~440MB

Readwise: ~385MB

Recent Files: ~425MB

Style Settings: ~450MB

Tag Wrangler: ~450MB

Tasks: ~405MB

Templater: ~437MB

Text Extractor: ~442MB

Moral of the story: Omnisearch is a memory hog. With every other plugin except Omnisearch turned on, Obsidian is running between 470 and 630MB. Thanks for the help with troubleshooting, Johnny!

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