Globally renaming property value?

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1

I want to rename several property values in Obsidian – like because one has a typo or something. I can’t tell if there’s a way to do that, perhaps with a plugin.

I found instructions for changing what the property itself is called, but that’s not what I want to edit. For example, I have a property called “category” in a vault for blog posts. There are a limited number of options here because I have a specific set of categories. I want to rename “Cleaning, Decorating, & Hospitality” to “Cleaning, Decluttering, & Decorating” – but I’d rather not have to change this in 100s of individual files. Is there a way to change the value once and have it update globally across all notes that have this value set in the “category” property?

2

You could give

a try. I’d make a vault backup beforehand for peace of mind (I do this for any vault-wide changes), but I’ve seen this recommended a bunch.

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3

Oh, that might work. I think I’ve seen this, but as far as I know, “renaming” is not an option. But until you posted this, it hadn’t occurred to me to add the new name in bulk and then delete the old one in bulk.

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4

Okay, so that didn’t work. With this extension, you can globally add a list value, but if there’s a way to include commas without lousing it up, I don’t know what it is.

I tried to add: Organization, Time Management, & Productivity and got:

Organization
Time Management
& Productivity

all added.

And as far as I can tell, there’s no way to delete a value using this. Only whole properties.

5

How many files are we talking about? I’m contemplating on whether a query with a meta bind button to update the file would be tolerable or not?

Doing mass edit through dataview or Templater is doable, but somewhat sketchy at times, so care should be taken.

6

Could be done in VSC or similar?

FIND
key: value

REPLACE
key:

7

For any automation methods, one needs consistency. There is no consistency in typos, although one could use a regex match to anchor to some common set of strings.
So this clean up job will need manual overseeing and multiple queries, whether in Obsidian core search or in DV(Js).

I am mainly writing here to interest you in the following:

The files from the demo vault are Datacore queries with live filtering and options to group by various properties. Maybe the most flexible way to have a look over your files. You’d also have the ability to modify property values on the fly if you install the Meta Edit plugin.
You can set folders to search in and in the settings part you can add your own properties.
Datacore would need to be installed via BRAT plugin.

I will not ask for a wider set of common errors because I would then be tempted to provide a regex replacer solution, while I can’t foresee all cases and I wouldn’t want to rename just anything.

8

To mass edit files you’ll need a developer ide: Vscode

Here a tutorial how to mass find replace with vscode:

Of course, make a backup of your vault before you proceed.