How to prevent [[Internally Linked]] Notes that have not been created yet from being mentioned in the search popup when creating a similarly named internal link inside a new note

[clabruno]

I use a lot of internal links in my YAML Frontmatter because it is helpful for creating useful dataview queries when creating indexed Maps and Mocs in my PKM but when I was first learning how to use Obsidian I was literally linking everything in my notes so when I go to create an internal link to a popular note, like for instance [[My Family Map]], there are a ton of different variations that come up from previous links that I created where a note was never actually created for, like for instance [[My Family]]. Outside of having to physically go through all of the old files and removing all of the old links, is there a way to eliminate internally linked files that haven’t been created from coming up (being mentioned) when I create an internal link in a file?

[CawlinTeffid]

There isn’t a way built in. I don’t think there’s a plugin either, but there could be.

But you can speed manual removal. If you create the uncreated note, you can then look at its backlinks pane to find everywhere it has been linked. If there are many of them, you do use Replace… to change [[Note name]] to Note name. Because the Replace… dialog stays open when you change files, you can quickly click backlink, click “Replace All”, repeat. (This won’t replace links that have link text — [[link|text]] — you’d have to do those by hand.) Or use an external editor that can do search-replace across files. (Make sure your backups are up to date.)