A Brain Dump vault is a folder of Markdown files that other apps can write to. Obsidian can write to it. iCloud can deliver a change from your other device. That is the point of a file-native app, and it means two writers can touch the same note.
Brain Dump watches for that. When the file backing the note you have open changes underneath you, the app checks the file itself and then either reloads quietly or asks you to choose.
What the app does when a file changes underneath you
It watches the open note. Brain Dump registers a file presenter on your vault root and a second one on the note currently open in the editor. Changes, moves, deletions and new files in the folder all raise a signal.
It waits 200 milliseconds. Filesystem notifications arrive in bursts. The open note debounces for 200 ms so one save does not produce five separate checks.
It ignores its own writes. Every write Brain Dump makes registers a token with a one second grace window. A notification arriving inside that window for a file Brain Dump just wrote is suppressed rather than treated as somebody else's edit.
It treats the notification as a hint, not a verdict. This is the part that matters. Before anything is called a conflict, the app re-reads the file: the path, the bytes, the frontmatter, the sidecar state and the file version. A notification alone is never enough to interrupt you. If that verification cannot complete, the app logs the failure and leaves your editor alone rather than guessing.
Then it branches on whether you have unsaved work.
- Editor is clean, nothing in flight, no conflict already open: the note reloads silently. No prompt, no decision. The new content is simply there.
- Editor is dirty: you get the conflict surface.
- File was deleted, moved, or now carries frontmatter the app cannot safely preserve: you always get the conflict surface, clean editor or not.
It waits for your work to settle. If a recording or transcription is running, or a save is still in flight, the change is parked and replayed once things go idle.
It re-checks when you come back. Bringing Brain Dump to the foreground runs the same verified external-change check against the open note, so an edit you made in Obsidian while the app was in the background is picked up on return.
What the conflict surface looks like
On Mac it is a sheet titled Two versions of this note. On iPhone it is a card headed FILE CHANGED OUTSIDE BRAINDUMP. Both carry the same payload.
A lead sentence names the reason:
- "The Markdown file changed outside this editor."
- "The Markdown file moved while this editor was open."
- "The original Markdown file was removed while this editor was open."
- "The note now contains frontmatter BrainDump cannot safely preserve."
Below that is an inline diff of the two versions, so you compare them in the app rather than opening two windows in a text editor.
Then four actions:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Keep editing | Dismiss and keep typing. Autosave stays paused, your draft stays checkpointed locally. |
| Use theirs | Reload the disk version into the editor. Your draft is retained for recovery. |
| Keep mine | A checked overwrite. Before writing, the disk version is preserved as a copy on disk. |
| Save mine as copy | Write your version to a new file and leave the original untouched. |
After you choose, a notice confirms what happened: "Kept your version. The previous disk version was preserved." or "Saved your version as ... and kept the original unchanged."
Preserved copies are named <note name> conflicted copy <computer name> <timestamp>.md, in the same folder as the note. A second collision appends a number.
No path in this flow overwrites one version with the other without keeping both. That is enforced beyond the conflict sheet too: restoring from source history re-checks the live file before it will overwrite, and if an image embed is rejected because the note moved on, the attachment file already written stays in your attachments folder.
Autosave itself carries the same check. When Brain Dump writes your note it writes against the snapshot it last read, and if the file on disk no longer matches that snapshot, the write is refused and the same conflict surface appears with the disk version loaded beside yours.
Two things worth knowing about the prompt
A prompt can occasionally appear when nothing important changed. If the diff shows no difference, or shows only your own edit, choose Keep mine. That is safe: the version on disk is preserved as a copy either way.
Different failure classes share one surface. A move, a deletion, unreadable frontmatter and a lost file permission all arrive at the same "Two versions" sheet, even though only one of them is really two competing versions of your text. Read the lead sentence, not just the title. It tells you which one you are looking at, and a moved or deleted file needs a different answer from a genuinely divergent one.
What actually reduces conflict prompts
The old advice on this page was to avoid editing on two devices. That advice is wrong for this app. Editing the same vault from Obsidian and from Brain Dump is the feature.
What genuinely reduces prompts is narrower:
Do not leave a note open and dirty in Brain Dump while you edit it elsewhere. A clean editor reloads silently. The prompt only exists because you have unsaved changes worth protecting. Pause for a moment after typing, let the 700 ms autosave land, and the next external change comes in without a decision.
Let a rename settle. Changing a note's title renames the file. The old path is still registered with the watcher for a moment. Rename, then wait a beat before editing the body.
If a note really is missing
These are last-resort steps, not the normal path. The normal path is the in-app sheet above.
Look for a conflicted copy first. Search your vault folder for conflicted copy. If Brain Dump preserved a version, it is a real .md file sitting next to the original.
Search the content, not the filename. Filenames come from note titles, and a title you never set gives a placeholder name you would not recognise. Full-text search in Obsidian, or grep -ri "a phrase you remember" . in the vault folder, finds it when the name does not.
Check Time Machine on Mac. Enter Time Machine with your vault folder open in Finder and step back to before the note vanished.
Check iCloud.com. Files occasionally appear there before they appear on a device.
For a faster pass, the quick checklist for a missing note covers the same three checks in under a minute.
We cannot recover a note from our servers. Note bodies never reach us, and diagnostic logs are redacted of note text by design. There is nothing on our side to search. That is the same property that makes the app private, and it is why local version history is worth setting up.
Set up version history before you need it
Everything above protects a single note during a single editing session. It is not a backup. For history that survives a deletion you did not notice for a week, put the vault in Git.
See the backup with Git guide, and note the .gitignore in it. Committing the app's hidden working directory will bury your notes in churn.
The bottom line
Brain Dump detects an external change to the note you have open, verifies the file before calling it a conflict, reloads silently when you have nothing to lose, and shows you both versions with four choices when you do. It never discards one version to keep the other.
What it will not do is decide for you. Read the lead sentence on the sheet, pick a side knowing the other one is kept, and run Git underneath for the history no editing session can give you.
Related guides:
- Backup with Git for version history the app does not keep
- Sync to Obsidian for how the same vault is shared
- Folder organization for structuring the vault