Christian Arzu posted this on 16 June 2024 and updated it on 10 June 2026. It is a personal notes post on linkarzu.com, with a YouTube chapter list. He does not name an employer or a team vault.
He stopped drafting notes in Google Docs and started keeping them in Obsidian. His notes are technical documents, and he prefers long files over a slip-box of tiny notes. He warns that the first weeks can disappear into plugins, templates, and zettelkasten videos. He says he spent months on that, then dropped back to using Obsidian as a notes app. The advice in his own words is to start with a structure you will still open next month.
The Google Docs → Obsidian playbook is the export, the folder map, and the exception list. Christian’s page is the why. A chapter marker at 13:01 says “Migrate only what you need.” He does not show the export clicks.
Why Docs lost
Large Docs with many images took too long to open. A search across his main notes folder in Google Drive did not return every file that contained the word. He wanted the files without a network. Google’s offline Docs extension exists, and he calls that experience poor.
A .gdoc file opens in the browser. Download it as .docx and you are in Word, or in LibreOffice, where the same document can reflow. Obsidian stores Markdown. He edits those files in Neovim, Vim, or TextEdit, and he gets fenced code blocks without a Docs add-on.
Images can sit next to the note or go to Imgur. The upload demo is in the video, not in the post. Vim motions are the last reason he lists. That one is a personal editing preference, not a migration requirement.
Where the files live
The vault is on disk. The Obsidian Git plugin pushes it to a private GitHub repository. He does not pay for Obsidian Sync, and he does not use the Obsidian mobile app. When he needs a note on a phone, he opens the same repo in GitHub’s mobile app.
Obsidian Sync is the paid path he mentions for people who want the official mobile client to see the vault. He did not take it. GitHub is public-repo shaped if you forget the privacy setting. He is explicit that his repo is private.
He also points at a graph view, a calendar with daily notes, and links between notes. Those are destination habits. They do not describe how a Doc became a Markdown file.
What the page does not decide for you
There is no count of documents, no Google Takeout or Docs export format, and no before-and-after of comments, suggestions, or sharing. A shared Drive folder with commenters is a different move from a single person’s technical notes. He does not claim he solved that.
The update in June 2026 refreshes the page. It does not add a migration log.
What I would copy
Move the notes you still open. His chapter list says that at 13:01, after the feature tour. A full Drive export feels thorough and leaves you with years of files you will not link.
Search the corpus for a word you know is in there before you trust Drive search as the archive. A miss on that search is the concrete failure he names. Slow image Docs are the other one.
Pick a sync path and a phone path together. His pair is the Git plugin plus the GitHub app, with Sync left off. If the vault has to stay off GitHub, that pair is the wrong copy, and Obsidian Sync is the option he pointed at and skipped.
The Google Docs → Obsidian playbook is the export and the comment ledger his post never opens. Use the post for the search miss, the private Git repo, and the warning that plugin setup can eat the month you meant to spend writing.