#21

Ok, thanks for your clarification. So now, we will just wait for it, no problem.

#22

@ViaAhmed: yes. It is on the so-called roadmap, it was even moved from long term to short term, but then Obsidian mobile came up and was given priority.

So, I don’t know how short/long is “short term”.

1 Like
#23

On Mac OS or Linux, or using the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), the sed command makes an excellent workaround that allows for regular expressions.

I recommend anyone with a need to batch edit files learn some of sed. Most of us will run into use cases that go beyond anything we could reasonably expect an application, or even a plugin, to cover. sed is a great Swiss Army knife for text manipulation with tons of support online.

Originally I planned to share a command that I recently ran to delete one of my metadata categories. Decided against this:

  • Running terminal commands from random people online like me is an exceptionally bad idea. You would have to learn some sed anyhow to make sure I am not trolling you by wrecking your computer.
  • Knowing even a little bit of what you’re doing with command-line tools is going to give you grand and terrible ideas for your notes, how to manage them, and how to make use of them.
  • You’ll better appreciate the Obsidian team’s decision to store your notes in a common, plain text format. It’s not just about “owning” you notes but about making them available to other tools.
1 Like
#24

[^1]: Those notes happen to be heavily backlinked because I got excited and went on a linking spree using the backlinks plugin a few months ago. I’ve since stopped using the automatic backlinking feature.<

How do you do the automatic backlinking feature? I would like to use that for a particular project I’m working on. Is that in Obsidian or Atom.io?

#25

I think this is one of the strengths of plain text, there are already plenty of tools that handle this really well without needing to bake the complexity into Obsidian. sed and Sublime Text come to mind first.

#26

+1 for this feature.

Is there any specific reason why this fundamental feature was not implemented from the beginning ?

3 Likes
#27

+1
Considering the dynamic nature of your notes and links this will be a really useful feature

#28

Appreciate your saying about “not owning but to make them available to other tools”, think that’s the core value of Obsidian

1 Like
#29

+100500. Of course I can always open the folder in VS Code and replace there, but it would be way nicer to do it in Obsidian.

1 Like
#30

+1000

Any updates on this?

1 Like
#31

My Method to Change an Obsidian link in all notes

(MOC=Map of Content, or index of notes)
Let’s suppose I used MOC Alpha to refer to in many other notes. But now, I want to change these links to another existing note, MOC Beta. I make the following:

  • I rename MOC Beta temporally (e. g. to MOC Beta X).
  • I Rename MOC Alpha to MOC Beta. So all referring links will be changed.
  • I move the content of the (actual) MOC Beta, or make a copy of it with other name, as desired.
  • I delete the actual MOC Beta file (the ex MOC Alpha).
  • I rename MOC Beta X to MOC Beta again. All notes that referred to MOC Alpha before, are pointing to MOC Beta now.
  • Done. (I may edit the content of the new MOC Beta. I can also reinstall MOC Alpha from the copy if necessary.)
3 Likes
#32

Any news on this feature ? Thanks !

2 Likes
#33

Along these same lines, it’d be great to be able to run a search and apply the find/replace for only the notes in those search results.

4 Likes
#34

+1

I’m a writer, note a coder. This must be a simple operation. I spent hours today trying to find a solution. Tried to learn sed, VS Code, echo… But it should be built into Obsidian. To write a tag should be a simple operation: you grab the files and drop in the tag.

2 Likes
#35

Any news on this fundamental feature ?

Current workaround : use bulk find&replace of Sublime Text, VSCode, etc…

1 Like
#37

It’s not this.

#38

…ping +1 please.

#39

+1 Would also be useful in changing fieldnames for Dataview globally. I was able to do it with VS Code, however.

#40

+1, please!

#41

+1, Please.