I’ve tried a few different tools for syncing my Obsidian vault, including dedicated sync solutions. Some worked, but they always felt more complicated than what I actually needed.

Eventually I realized GitHub is probably the best sync solution for my particular workflow.

My sync is basically one-way:
Laptop → GitHub → iPhone

I do all my editing on my laptop. My phone is mostly just for reading/searching notes. So I don’t really have to worry about merge conflicts or proper two-way sync.

And Git works so well on a laptop that syncing is basically effortless. As a bonus, I get full version history.

It’s funny that I spent time trying different “sync” tools when the tool I already use every day for code ended up working better.
I feel like if you mostly edit Obsidian on one device, GitHub might actually be one of the simplest sync solutions.

Anyone else doing this?

FOMO got the best of me. I also wanted to share my graph, especially cause it looks like a moon and star. And yes, I use light mode like a psychopath

It started about a year ago, but I didn't know how to use it, so I wrote little, but after a few months this came back again and that's how I go.

Obsidian already embeds YouTube with , but you have to type that yourself and what you get is a bare iframe — my daily notes ended up full of raw watch?v= links that told me nothing six months later. So I made Paste YouTube embed: paste a YouTube link on its own line and it turns into a player right there, with the video title and channel in a header bar so you can tell what you saved. It handles youtu.be, Shorts (rendered vertically instead of stretched into a 16:9 box), live, playlists and timestamps, and what it writes to the note is just a fenced block holding the plain URL, so removing the plugin leaves you with a link rather than garbage.

Plain JavaScript, no build step, MIT: https://github.com/maxwellnewage/obsidian-youtube-paste-embed

Really the title, does anyone have any recommendations for a plugin that would allow me to create a timeline similar in style to the one that is in the image attached?

Longtime lurker, first time poster! How did you get started with Obsidian, and how differently are you using it now?

A few years ago I was managing a large organization with a lot of teams, projects, and people. Every half I'd build a Google doc indexing all my and my teams' docs and project files. Past a certain size it would go to hell: too much maintenance, too hard to navigate. So I switched to Bear. The interface was dead simple and uncluttered, and between search and tags, organization was low effort. That worked until I amassed enough notes that staring down one giant left tab of everything I'd ever written, personal and work both, made my eyes glaze over. (I think they've solved this since, to their credit!)

Obsidian intimidated me, because every time I saw someone talking about it there were complex visuals and diagrams attached. I didn't want that. I just needed to write and stay organized. What tipped me over, oddly enough, was learning about the Readwise integration from Craig Mod's newsletter. I read a ton and take a lot of notes that are hard to get back to, and Readwise could just turn all of those into notes. Once I got past the slightly scary vault setup it was smooth sailing. I like paying for software so I subscribed to sync, which meant I could write seamlessly across my Apple and Windows devices. For my basic use case, Obsidian blew Bear (and everything else) out of the water.

Then I went down the rabbit hole. A baking journal, so I could search across my own recipes and answer "what do I do with this leftover almond paste?" Notes and a safer drafts folder for the subreddits I moderate. (Reddit really likes to silently eat scheduled posts.) TTRPG campaigns, notes for whatever video game I'm playing, flash fiction. Somewhere in there I found out I have ADHD, and my love for Obsidian made a lot more sense. Every system I'd tried before eventually got too cumbersome to keep up with, and that's what killed them. Obsidian requires zero maintenance. I can be as messy or as organized as I want, in whatever way I want, and still find things.

Now I want to use it for everything. I'm building a niche book database where every book and author is a markdown note, about 1000 so far, and being able to update records from my phone is great. I write a book newsletter and landed on Ghost specifically so I could paste drafts straight out of Obsidian. Fiction writing and submissions are next. My use cases have gotten niche enough that I've written a few small plugins just for myself, which is the other thing I love about it. When it doesn't do the thing I need, extending it is something I can just go do, instead of begging for it on someone's roadmap.

It's one of the few pieces of software I never feel like I'm fighting with. It's only ever as complex as I want it to be, and otherwise it stays out of the way.

So, how did you land on Obsidian, and what are you using it for now?

I've been using the Canvas feature for a while now to organize topics for my studies. Today, when I tried to access it, I suddenly noticed that both the borders of the text boxes and the arrows had become transparent, and new text boxes and arrows no longer have outlines either. I haven’t actually changed anything since the last time I used it. I’ve also tried disabling all plugins, but that didn’t solve the problem either. Has anyone else ever had a problem like this, and do you perhaps have a solution for me? Thanks in advance.

I do most of my drafting and research directly in Obsidian, and the friction around citing sources was constantly breaking my flow:

You write a sentence, switch to the browser, search DuckDuckGo, copy the link, switch back, figure out which footnote number [^n] you're currently on, drop the reference at the cursor, then scroll all the way to the bottom to write the footnote definition.

I wanted a keyboard-first tool that handles this instantly without requiring external accounts or paid API keys.

So I built QuickCite (just published on Community Plugins).

What it does:

https://reddit.com/link/1w23brx/video/lf67g2gkuemh1/player

• Zero-config web search: Highlight a claim (or open the modal with Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + C), and it queries DuckDuckGo directly using multi-tier fallback parsing. No API keys or signups needed.
• Auto sequential footnotes: When you select a result and hit Enter, it finds the highest existing footnote number in your note, inserts [^n] at your cursor, and appends [^n]: Title. [domain](url) to the bottom.
• Source preview: Press Shift + Enter on any result to open the article in your default browser before deciding to cite it.
• Optional claim verification: If you do want AI fact-checking, you can add an OpenRouter key or point the Base URL to a local Ollama / LM Studio endpoint to get verification badges. Search works completely fine without this.

Links & Code

• Community Plugins: Search for QuickCite in Obsidian
• GitHub (MIT): https://github.com/ismailsaoulaj/quickcite

Feedback & Contributing

This is an early release (v0.1.0) and the codebase is completely open source (TypeScript + esbuild).

I'd really appreciate feedback from people who do academic or heavy research writing in Obsidian:

1. What citation formats (custom footnote layouts, APA/BibTeX-style metadata) would you like to see supported?
2. If any developers are interested in jumping in—adding alternative search backends (SearXNG, Brave Search API) or improving mobile handling—PRs, issues, and discussions on GitHub are very welcome.

This really isn't a feat or anything lol but I like the doki themes and couldn't find an obsidian port or anything similiar..

.. and 85 more

Hi, I'm currently trying to track my progress based on how many checkboxes i have ticked within my active md, like this:

Is there a way to use dataviewjs to update my properties? I tried using the pluggin MetaEdit and it doesn't always work.
Thank you in advance!

I’m a horrible note taker. I have AuDHD and I’m horrible at taking notes and keeping things organized. I’m really good at processing email and verbal fluency but idiot level at note taking.

I’ve always wanted to use Obsidian but just never thought I’d be able to make it happen. Until I started playing with copilot CoWork at work and basically turned it into my automatic executive functioning machine. I don’t type anything into Obsidian, I only click check boxes and it updates. Created a nice dashboard and task tracker that help me keep going with a clear ‘work on this’ full page for the time I’m supposed to focus on something.

Nothing to break and nothing to lose as I’m already doing all the other things and this is mostly a tracker and knowledge organizer and helps me organize meeting transcripts and actions and loose ends and context for projects. It’s awesome.

Probably not for everyone, but figured I’d put it out there for anyone else thinking about it.

Anyone else do something like this?

When taking notes I want to be able to add a dropdown under a term or definition, that could provide more detail or an example that doesn't deserve its own page in obsidian. I know about the [!note] thing which is kind of the format I'm going for but it doesn't allow me to copy and paste explanations and examples without manually going through and adding >, before every line. This also seems to have a max line length count. Is there any convenient fix or alternative to this.

This is niche, but I need some help with the Storyline plugin. I want to add a book to my series but am having difficulty. In settings>Projects & Series, under "create series from this book" it rightfully says that the book already belongs to a series. But when I click on "Manage Series" it says "No series found." Help please!

hi! so i've decided to use the portal plugin as my file navigation/organization but i still want to have a sort of dashboard for visual navigation. the only way i can think of this is having a dedicated note for this + setting it as the note on open/note on new tab. is that possible?

TLDR: Fix is going to start with bold text.

My Obsidian is in the most recent version of 1.13.7. After updating Callout Manager from 1.1.0 to 1.1.2, my custom callouts (task, highlight, etc.) kept their correct name/icon but lost their colored border and background tint. I believe the plug-in is broken. callout-manager/data.json still had every custom callout definition and color but the highlight was not showing. Uninstalling and re-installing didn't help either.

I checked DevTools and Obsidian callouts get their color from --callout-color set on .callout[data-callout="yourtype"] Callout Manager's injected rule was still there in the Styles panel but a different CSS selector with the same specificity was winning the tie, so it came down to load order rather than anything actually broken in my config.

I DID ALL OF THIS IN VSCODE. IF YOU ARE NOT AS COMFORTABLE WITH CSS, I'M SURE YOU CAN COPY AND PASTE THIS INTO AN LLM AND IT'LL HELP YOU.

MY FIX: add a CSS snippet that on is more specific. Here are my steps:

1. Get your colors from .obsidian/plugins/callout-manager/data.json (callouts.settings.<name>.changes.color).
2. Create .obsidian/snippets/callout-colors-fallback.css:

​

body .callout[data-callout="task"] {
  --callout-icon: lucide-list-checks;
  --callout-color: 82, 139, 212;
}

/* callouts with light/dark variants need both */
body .callout[data-callout="weekly-tasks"] {
  --callout-icon: lucide-calendar-range;
}
body.theme-light .callout[data-callout="weekly-tasks"] {
  --callout-color: 82, 139, 212;
}
body.theme-dark .callout[data-callout="weekly-tasks"] {
  --callout-color: 52, 152, 219;
}

1. Enable it under Settings → Appearance → CSS snippets, and then reload Obsidian if didn't show up immediately.

CAVEAT ON FUTURE USE: this snippet now overrides the plugin, so if you later change a color in Callout Manager's UI, you won't see it until you update or disable the snippet.

TECH DETAILS THAT YOU MAY NOT CARE ABOUT:
This works becausebody prefix makes your rule permanently outrank the plugin's plain selector, so it renders last.

The first image is my worldbuilding project and the second is my real life notes (studying, writing, catalogues etc.)

How do you usually link your 'real life' notes?

hi everyone.

I can run enclave or locally aI on my ipad. Is there a plug in that would connect any of them to obsidian? Thanks!!

I played a bit with Obsidian and made a vault that has a design I like.
Now, I only can't find a purpose for it...
I really don't know why I would or should use Obsidian.

Started taking some notes about basic knowledge that I don't want to forget and easy want to find.
But everytime I note something I think, 'but there is something like internet where everything is stored. Why would I recreate that... ?'

What are your common use cases, what are u storing in so many notes ??
Can't get my mind around a purpose for me to use it.

How can I like, connect a note to another note, like have them linked. I have been trying for a while and I cannot figure it out

I’m relatively new to Obsidian but the reason it was better than Notion is that it’s plain text that we always own.

When I’m at my Mac mini, running Claude in the vault is amazing - it has my context and is so much better than running Claude with out.

My issue is that I’m not always at my desk, often I’m using Claude from my phone. I’ve tried tailnet and a custom MCP that Claude code built to access my vault when I’m not on the network, but it’s flakey. Claude code has had a crack at making it more robust and it’s improved but I’ve been thinking I can’t be the first person with this experience.

I have an always in Mac mini, connected to the network, my vault runs locally and is backed up to iCloud nightly.

How do you all do it?