Adding my +1 to this feature.
+1 for me here as well.
If these suggested “workspaces” are anything like Obsidian’s vaults, then it’s worth pointing out that most Obsidian users only use 1-2 workspaces. For the people that have two, it’s usually personal and work notes (or RPG, novel writing, etc.). Some people even go back to using one vault after discovering the need to make connections between notes of different workspaces or finding it too difficult to maintain isolated sets of notes in the same app.
-1. Tags, search, and the archive work just fine for isolating sets of notes in Bear.
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With 4500+ notes and a database of 87G I like workspaces.
I keep my secret notes, my language study notes, my culinary and wine notes and my personal notes in Bear.
Syncing between MacOS and iOS goes blazing fast.
After the release of Bear 2.0, I would like an update with workspaces.
Workspaces with separate databases with their own encryption and passwords.
I also like to choose which of the workspaces sync with iphone or ipad.
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(accidentally deleted my post above on editing it on phone)
It maybe. But in the pkm scene the ideology rules to build a second brain where everything is connected to everything so that someday hidden knowledge is explored. It has nothing to do with pragmatism if the typical obsidian user uses 1 vault. Rather than that they try to find the philosophers stone in a mysterious connection between cooking recipes and math notes
[Addition]:
Furthermore the vault switcher in obsidian is terrible userexperience. When you create a new vault all your settings and even installed plugins are not available anymore so that you have to start from beginning your whole setup. No wonder why people don’t use it. In bear on the contrary i expect a simple and clean ui for switching. In the main ui i just would like to have the opportunity to switch between different workspaces with the help of a menu there they are listed. No more no less. The creation, naming and deletion of workspaces could be done from the main menu
It may work for you. Many others have given enough reasoning why it doesn‘t work fine for them. Please do not ignore their arguments by assuming that your workflow and your strategies are also good for them. My main point in abstract words: the content of the notes require its own method of organisation. Subordinating all your notes under one hyped method (para, Johnny decimal or whatever) is like using a hammer to put a screw in a piece of wood and for everything else
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A little off topic, but I am curious. Are you saying that you have 4500+ notes with an 87GB database in Bear? (I assume that you must have a good deal of attachments in the notes to get that size DB.) And it is still blazingly fast?
I am asking because while I have never had a moments trouble with Bear on any platform, or with its sync, I have wondered about how much I can add before something negative happens, like slowness, data loss, whatever.
Note that I am in no way criticizing Bear- I love it and it has been rock solid. I just have been reluctant to push too far, because nothing is perfect.
Please let me know. Thank you.
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Exactly the same to me!
Yes. Advanced query works but is not convenient.
I’d rather see easier advanced queries (some sort of interface other than text) and being able to save queries.
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Some of the problems mentioned here are solved with:
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Special searches for todo, today, untagged, etc.
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Saved searches with X-Callback-URLs.
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Big +1 here. Longtime Bear user and huge fan - this is my must-share app with co-workers and friends.
Being able to split between multiple workspaces is the one feature that keeps from being able to use Bear for all my notes. I have to resort to Craft or Notion (which feel so clunky compared to Bear) with work notes because I simply can’t have all my personal notes matching and popping up during searches/etc while I’m at work. When I’ve tried to use tags or special searches to namespace my work stuff, I inevitably still run into personal notes, journaling, etc. frequently, which leads me to leave the app altogether.
A work/personal split would probably be sufficient (would be a huge win), though the flexibility to manage a customizable set of workspaces would be nice, as I sometimes work multiple jobs.
Being able to have multiple workspaces open (like Chrome profiles) would be even nicer. If designed like that (where in the default experience you wouldn’t even know it’s a feature so it doesn’t get in the way), I think it could maintain Bear’s simple and super-polished look and feel.
Thanks and keep up the great work!
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Personally this is my #1 feature request for Bear 2.1. Everything else I wanted they already implemented (maybe except for better table handling).
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This is also my #1 feature request for Bear 2.1.
Workspaces with their own databases and synchonisation, their own passwords and encryption.
I also like to have a choice which workspaces will be available on iPhone and iPad.
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To gain some perspective here, ask yourself this:
- What is Bear and what was it made for?
- What is Bear not for; meaning, are there any parts of its design that make Bear harder to use in some modes of thought or usage?
My answers:
- Bear is a notes app focused on writing, first and foremost. That’s how the developers describe it. Go to the App Store and look again at the description. “focused, flexible notes app” and “Write quickly and share anywhere”.
- Bear is not designed to be an Evernote replacement. The developers don’t say it’s an “everything bucket”, although Bear 2 does add OCR for PDF’s and a much better PDF view (first page only).
Everyone’s trying desperately to find their Evernote replacement, and it just might have to be multiple programs to get the job done. I’m using Bear to store reference material I need when I’m in the field on a service call and for personal information. I journal my day there, too.
It’s really nice that Bear has a web clipper, and it works well. I find articles on the web I clip, read them on Bear, then export them to the file system as .docx for storage. That’s where one can do the heavy organizational lifting and linking, probably with an alternate program, perhaps EagleFiler or DEVONthink (EagleFiler works best with RTF, but iOS doesn’t have a built-in RTF parser and DEVONthink works best in PDF, and it’s hard to read PDF’s on a phone.)
Those programs also have web clippers, and I’ve tried them all, but Bear’s is elegant and it’s much easier to capture and edit the articles down in Bear than in the others. I don’t save in PDF’s anymore, because it’s easier to get searchable, usable content with .docx than PDF.
I’ve got macOS folders for my business and folders for personal use, those are my workspaces.
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Just for the sake of rather theoretical discussion 
- Bear 2.0 comes closer to full PKM than Bear 1.0. OCR, attachments, scribbles, tables, links previews, pdf previews/markup etc means that. So it is now definitely closer to Evernote than to SimpleNote I would say. And I believe Bear homepage will later change in accordance with that fact. Also, first link in Resources row in the footer of the Bear homepages says: Import from Evernote (no other apps there).
but mainly:
- whether it should or should not we consider/use it as full PKM or just textual storage does not do much with the question about whether separate workspaces (for work, private life etc) should or should not exist. I do not think that defining Bear as textual-first or text-focused/only app excludes this option at all.
(I do not have opinion whether it is good or bad idea to have separate workspaces)
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I thought all you need to do is copy the hidden .obsidian file from an existing vault to the new one (doing this in the computers file manager ( finder, etc.).
I am not really an obsidian user. I just follow the development out of curiosity.
Exactly here you have a good example for bad user experience. How should i know that i have to copy one file from one place to another? Why doesn’t obsidian ask me if i would like to take over the settings from one vault to another?
Obsidian doesn’t hold your hand! But for people who love working in the weeds, Obsidian is very powerful.
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It is a power that comes from summing up a lot of features. Sometimes i even do not know what a plugin is about all. However, when you compare the baritone obsidian without plugins with bear 2 i really can’t say what obsidian is able to do what bear cannot, apart from the local graph. Obsidian tries to be everything with all these plugins and that might attract some people but also push off others like me. Is there one feature in barebone obsidian that i would like to see in bear? Just one: workspaces. 
Actually - as far as i have remarked - the pkm-nerds prefer one vault
Have you seen the new Canvas feature in Obsidian (a “core plugin”)? That is one big deal! It’s basically a white board that allows you to add data in free form.
However, I must admit that I rely on quite a number of community plugins as I do some deep PKM. One important one is DataView which introduces a database foundation to notes. I can define one note that presents a live table of all notes that satisfy any number of criteria. This certainly goes well beyond Bear’s (and Craft’s) wheelhouse. For me, Bear is a note editor with some PKM added. For much of my work, Bear is what I need (and I wouldn’t think of using Obsidian). For other activities, I need Obsidian. BTW I’ve been using Craft for the past year or two (having used Bear before that). But as others have pointed out, Craft has moved in a “corporate” direction, whereas Bear 2 promises to be an even better note app. And it looks great! (unlike Obsidian).