Files sorted alphabetically in Obsidian’s Navigator are sorted correctly, but when it finds two (or more) files with the same name, Obsidian then switches to time created, and puts the most recently created file above the other with the same name.
Problem 1: The Calendar Plugin (incl Periodic Notes)
This causes issues with Liam Cain’s various Calendar plugins (over 3.8 million downloads). Calendar looks for the first file named 2026-07-19, for example, when selecting that date in the Calendar. If 2026-07-19.png comes first in navigator when sorted by alphabet, it opens that.
Example with Screenshots
I tested this in Sandbox. To reproduce
Create a graphic file (png) named x. Create a second (md) file and also call it x. Put them in the same folder, sort navigator alphabetically, and the png file will appear before the md file in the list.
This is what it looks like when using the Calendar plugin:
For example, if the folder includes 2026-07-18.md and 2026-07-18.png, AND the png file was created first, then Calendar displays that instead of the md file.
Problem 2: Having to resize navigator to see extension
With long file names or narrow-ish navigator frame sizes, it is difficult to determine which files are the main md files vs other extensions. We sometimes have to widen the navigator temporarily just to see the exstenions, then slide it back in position. Even just hovering on a file in the Navigator does not indicate a file’s extension.
This is doubly troubling on a phone.
Proposed solution
If we could somehow be guaranteed that the first file of a group of files all named the same thing is always the md file, then we could just auto select it without accidentallyl opening zip files or image files which interrupts workflow.
Maybe include a switch such that users can set navigator to always display the md file first when multiple files are named the same thing (with various extensions):
- 2026-07-18.md
- 2026-07-18.jpg
- 2026-07-18.png
Of course this would also make the Calendar plugins always work as it is supposed to.
Current workaround (optional)
Users can always put all non-md files into other folders like assets, but not everyone works this way. There are really good reasons for keeping all related files together.
Users can rename ALL non-md files that share the same root name by appending -1, -2 to distinguish from the original md file, but that wouldn’t help when the navigation bar is too narrow, and it could be confusing. If my files are “20th birthday.md”, I could have “20th birthday-1.png” and so on, and that would work fine for pictures, but could get confusing with zip files or backup files if we keep those in the same folder as well. Is 20th birthday-1.zip a zip of the original folder, or a zip of a COPY of the original folder where -1 was added to the file? (Lots of us tend to append numbers to mean backup versions).
For use with the Calendar plugin, one workaround is to always ensure that the .md file is always created first. If you add a file later with the same name (an archived picture you took on that day) you have to delete and recreate the Calendar md file.