15 Obsidian Plugins that I can’t live without
With over 600 plugins at the time of writing this article, Obsidian.md users are spoilt for choice when it comes to plugins. Many of these plugins are super niche. So here are the ones that I find most useful, and perhaps, you will too.
All of these plugins can be downloaded from the “Community Plugins” section in Obsidian, but I have included the link to the GitHub repository anyway to give credit where due.
Advanced Tables
Obsidian can handle tables through markdown. They’re pretty hard to edit and build with raw markdown. That’s why it’s probably a good idea to enlist the help of a plugin. This plugin makes adding rows, columns and so much more easier.
Calendar
The Calendar plugin integrates really nicely with several plugins. Firstly, it integrates with daily notes, so you’ll be able to click on a day and view/add a daily note. It’s also necessary if you are going to try keep track of tasks in Obsidian.
Kanban
This plugin allows you to create a kanban board (Like Trello). There are many uses for this from tracking projects to creating a writing inbox.
Dataview
Dataview is one of the most powerful plugins in Obsidian. Imagine that every note in your vault is a row (record) in an excel sheet. Dataview is like pressing Ctrl + F. It allows you to query any number of notes based on almost any criteria. So for example if you have multiple notes with the word “daily notes” in the title, and tagged with “#Happy” you can query your entire vault to show you all the daily notes with the tag “#happy”. This is just a simple example. I would NOT recommend using dataview if you’re new to Personal Knowledge Management and/or Obsidian.
## Templater
Templater is a more powerful version of the built-in template plugin for Obsidian.md. This plugin will allow you to create powerful templates. I use Templater to automatically insert the previous and next dates in my daily notes. However, you can do some really powerful things with Templater.
## Outliner
Outliner implements powerful outlining functionality like Roam Research or Workflowy in Obsidian. Coupled with the “Zoom” plugin mentioned later in this article, you can transform Obsidian into an incredibly powerful outlining tool.
Sliding Panes
Sliding Panes! Or, Andy Matushak mode, this is based on Andy Matushak’s notes. Andy is somewhat of a PKM legend because he’s been able to use his Personal Knowledge Management System to write prolifically on a variety of topics.
Sliding panes adds a nice layer of usability to your Obsidian Vault. It will feel like you’re shuffling pages around on a desk rather than flitting around a Wikipedia article.
Natural Language Dates
The Natural Dates plugin allows you to write dates naturally. So, instead of saying [[25-03-2022]] you can just write “@today” and it will insert the date.
Editor Syntax Highlight
Obsidian comes with the built in ability to pre-format code. However, when working with large amounts of code it is helpful to have Syntax Highlighting. Obsidian has very basic syntax highlighting so installing Editor Syntax highlight makes working with code easier.
Tag Wrangler
Have you ever realised that half of your books notes are tagged with “#book” but the other half are tagged with “#books”? Well, there’s a plugin for that. Tag wrangler allows you to find and replace tags, bulk edit and a few other things.
Note Refactor
Note refactor allows you to quickly format your notes. You can easily split notes up to make them more atomic. Highlight some text and instantly create a note with the first line as a heading, or split an entire not by it’s headings. Note refactor can do it.
Dictionary
It’s a dictionary.
Find unlinked Files
In the world of “linked thought” orphan notes (notes that aren’t linked to any other notes) are the antithesis of what you’re trying to achieve. “Find Unlinked Files” lives up to it’s name. It will find all your unlinked files and dump them into one note so you can go through them and either link them, delete them or deal with them however you wish.
Zoom
This plugin coupled with the outliner plugin is incredibly powerful. This plugin allows you to “zoom” on a single bullet in a lengthy bullet point list. So if you’re using obsidian outliner to create a long document this plugin could be a life saver.
Footnote Shortcut
Obsidian comes with built in Footnotes feature. However it can become quite cumbersome. The footnote shortcut plugin allows you to easily insert footnotes with a customer shortcut.
Underline
This one is simple. There is no way to add an underline in Markdown/Obsidian.md. So, how do you add an underline in Obsidian? Well, without a plugin you can add an underline by using the HTML below. It would look like this:
<ul>Underlined Text</ul>
Note: This is technically the markup for an “Unordered List” but it shouldn’t effect the outcome in anyway.
But, writing this out every time is cumbersome, so the “underline shortcut” plugin allows you to insert an underline by using the “Ctrl + U” shortcut.
How to install plugins in Obsidian.md
All of these plugins can be installed by going to the “Community Plugins” section in obsidian.md. You may be prompted about safety, just click “enable” or “accept”.
You can visit this link to learn more about Obsidian Markdown Syntax.