Access Obsidian notes via Spotlight search (iOS/iPadOS)

Use case or problem

Many iOS apps allows you to search for and open their files via the home screen Spotlight search. This can speed up finding and opening a file by quite a lot (for instance, no need to find and open to respective app first).

As of now this feature seems to not be implemented for Obsidian.

(Though, yes, Obsidian’s files do appear if you search for them in Spotlight, but this is via the Files app, not via Obsidian; If you “click” them they don’t open in Obsidian but some other built-in plaintext viewer)

Proposed solution

Allow iOS Spotlight to search within Obsidian and open files

16 Likes

Agreed! I came here to suggest the same thing. Once Obsidian is open the built in search is excellent, but it indisputably quicker to access a note directly from Spotlight or Siri.

This would encourage users like me to use Obsidian for a lot more small notes that I otherwise put in Drafts or Apple Notes because they’re faster to retrieve. Currently, there is a significant trade off: Obsidian is the equivalent of filing something in the filing cabinet, Drafts or Notes is like leaving a sticky note on my desk. Adding Spotlight integration would make Obsidian fast and well-connected.

3 Likes

For some context, read the existing threads requesting Obsidian to open Markdown files in general or it least its own files from the system file manager.

1 Like

I just leave Obsidian open all the time. :slightly_smiling_face:

Just checking, you mean this built-in search functionality in iOS right?

Is this on the roadmap for iOS? I only see 2 features on the Obsidian roadmap currently.

Also: would it be possible to write an extension that works in iOS to allow iOS to search the notes in a vault or is that too low-level? (I’ve never written any iOS code)

Came here to suggest this!

The path from “idea!” to getting the file open that I need has a bit of friction sometimes. I migrated here from Craft and while I have my issues with them, one thing they nailed was the speed to editing a note. Their native iOS spotlight search helped a lot.

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I think you might be able to try something like Alfred or Raycast if u r on mac.

Oh yeah, Raycast has some kind of built-in Obsidian integration. I don’t use that app so don’t know if it does what you want.

This feature request is for iOS so Alfred and Raycast are irrelevant for that.

2 Likes