Batch Cleaning Mark down files before pasting into Obsidian folder in Windows explorer

[Jerry2]

Dear all,

This may not fall into this category. So I just found out about Obsidian. I have a lot of notes copied from website with footnotes,etc. I copy pasted these into Obsidian folder. the problem is in the original files there are a lot of [1], [sth sth], etc which create a very crowded graph from the get-go. So I went in the file 1 by 1, and replace “[” with “(”.

I have thousands of the mark down files. Does anyone know how I can replace “[” with “(” in all the files at one go, instead of changing the file 1 by 1? It does not need to be inside Obsidian. This will give me a more tidy graph.

Thanks,
Jerry

Things I have tried

What I’m trying to do

[efemkay]

U can use vscode (or atom) to do that in batches. Forum post below shows how to remove [[]]. It should be applicable to u to replace [ with (

Is anyone aware of ANY way we can delink/unlink mentions efficiently?

on top of @unrelated suggestion on using sed, awk or grep, and if u need a solution right now, i highly suggest using vscode to achieve the very same thing. once u have vscode installed u can open your vault with File > Open Folder and choose your Obsidian vault. then use Find in Folder... to search and replace content of your notes/files. vscode is better at bulk search and replace. u can see at my screenshot below that u can choose to replace only certain links or all links it found. [image…

[echoreflection]

There is a program called “renamer” that might be able to do what you’re looking for.

https://www.den4b.com/products/renamer

It’s been on my to-do list for a long time now to use it to move my Notion and Evernote notes into Obsidian.

[Jerry2]

Thanks @efemkay , I’ll try that soon! Thanks.

[Jerry2]

This only change the file names and not the file content @echoreflection

[echoreflection]

@Jerry2 Ah I guess I misunderstood what you were looking for.

[cobblepot]

Notepad++ has a batch search/replace that will work on all files in a given folder.

[Jerry2]

I have used a program called Grepwin. (There is another one called WinGrep). It looked like it did the work when I opened the file. But in Obsidian, i used the random plug in and got a file which still has [1]. I will revert back if can find why.