Add option: do not create new note when clicking non-existing link, show "not found" message instead

Feature requests
1

Use case or problem

Currently, there are two options when clicking a non-existing link:

  • Create note in root folder.
  • Create note in same folder.

My vaults consist of many folders, with notes that contain many links.
I never want to create a new note in the root folder, and I almost never want to link to a note in the same folder as the current note.
Please note that my workflow involves clicking on these links a lot. When I click on a non-existing link, I want Obsidian to just tell me that the file doesn’t exist.

Proposed solution

Since this feature is not popular, it should not be the default behaviour, but it would be preferrable to have this available as an optional setting:

  • Do not create new note when clicking on a non-existing link.

Current workaround

A suggested workaround that I have found is:

  • Not clicking on non-existing links. This is not an acceptable solution for me, because I don’t want to be “punished” for clicking on links too quickly, and I never want to create new notes by clicking on links.

Related feature requests

Related posts I have found: (please note that none of these posts are 100% same to this one, this feature request asks for an option to completely disable current behavior in all cases)

2

Good idea! Another workaround is to include the path in your link so that worst comes to worst and you accidentally click the link, at least the note will be created in the correct folder.

For example, [[software/houdini]] would create the Houdini note within the software folder when clicked. And if the software folder doesn’t exist, it will be created. I understand this is likely not the solution for you, but thought it might be worth sharing just in case.

Good luck!

3

There’s also a bit of a problem for things like email addresses. E.g.

Email to [email protected]

[email protected] gets turned into a “link”.

  • Clicking on it creates a note called [email protected].
  • Prefixing with mailto: → mailto:[email protected] disables the “immediate” click. Control-clicking pops up a confirmation.