File Explorer: Allow new notes and folders to be added to "currently selected folder"

[ObsidianOverlord9000]

Use case or problem

Currently, when you first open the app (PC or mobile), browse through your file structure (e.g. twirl down different folders to view their contents), and then create a new note (by clicking the New note icon, or pressing CTRL+N), it will always create a note in the root directory.

Even if you have the “same folder as current file” feature selected, it will still open in the root directory because you don’t have a current file open. You just opened the app.

If the last folder I clicked on was “Favorite Foods”, this behavior is counter-intuitive. The act of me clicking on a folder intuitively makes me believe that when I now press CTRL+N, the note will get dumped into that folder.

Proposed solution

It would be great if Obsidian recognizes that we have currently highlighted a folder (in the file explorer view), and so if we press CTRL+N or the “new note” icon, that we have the option for it to create a note in that folder.

Current workaround (optional)

Currently the only way to achieve this is to right click or hold your finger down on the desired folder, and then click “New Note” in the menu that pops up. This workaround is a bit cumbersome particularly when you have selected a folder, and have now already started scrolling down the list of notes in that folder. You would have to scroll all the way back up, find the name of the folder, right-click it, and click new note.

Related feature requests (optional)

Not sure how related this is, but it’s related to selecting which folder a note goes into: New note in folder - better method

[BarryPorter13]

In the Obsidian preference, you can tel obsidian exactly where a new note will be saved.

[ObsidianOverlord9000]

Right, but Obsidian only has three options:

• Save to root folder
• Save to the same folder as the currently open file
• Save to the folder you specify here: ____________

The problem with the 2nd bullet is that you must already have a file open for it to work. What if you’re navigating through the file structure viewer while you don’t have any notes open (e.g. because you just opened the app, you had the graph view open last, or you closed all the open notes). You would intuitively want any new note to be created inside the folder you are currently navigating inside (e.g. the folder you have highlighted in the file structure viewer)

The problem with the 3rd bullet is that it forces all new notes to be created in the same folder every time, rather than adapting based on which folder you’re currently diving into.

Hope that helps clarify!

[CawlinTeffid]

A folder note plugin may help you for now, using the option to open a folder’s note when the folder is selected.

Your request is different from but I think related to

Allow [[links]] to folders

I don’t think this has been explicitly requested previously. Similar posts exist here and here, but I don’t think they’re the same as this request. I’ll try to make it simple: if a folder exists in the vault, you should be able to backlink to it—like [[Folder]]. This would make it easier to interlace folder-and-note setups for those of us using them. It’s also in line with how DEVONthink interprets [[wikilinks]]—not sure about other wikilink-supporting apps. Another twist on this idea: ![[Fol…

Both want better integration of folders.

[snattack]

Every other note taking software, file explorer and other software with folder structures work like this:

1. Click (or double click) a folder. The folder is opened/selected/expanded.
2. Run any kind of “Create new/file/folder/note/asset/etc” command.
3. The asset is created within the folder that was clicked/expanded/selected.

Obsidian is the only software I’ve ever used that doesn’t work this way. It’s extremely unintuitive, as it requires re-learning behaviours of 30 years computer usage, and still – since it’s behaviour is unique – makes me do it the wrong way all the time.

The right click/hold for menu is a workaround, not a solution. It means that there is no possibility to select a folder and run hotkey “create note” when using desktop, and adds extra waiting time on mobile.

If the dev team can’t fix this, would a plugin be able to circumvent this very essential behaviour? Or is this hard coded?

[defvx]

+1 for this, in concept. I currently use the plugin Folder Notes, so I can make folders navigable and linkable, but its a workaround.
While this the ability to navigate to a folder and execute commands within its context is more more important to me then linking to them, I do think adding this sort of functionality is a stop gap from just implementing many of the folders-as-first-class-citizens features into core Obsidian that many plugins already provide with workarounds.