Importing an existing vault with custom metadata format

[elliottslaughter]

Hi,

I’ve got an existing tool that uses a slightly different file format. Each note has a filename YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS.md and contains the header:

---
created: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS-ZZ:00
modified: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS-ZZ:00
---

# Title

I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to make Obsidian work with this format, or barring that, find a common format that both new and old tools will read. (E.g., I can put the title in the YAML metadata if that would help.)

As best I can tell, Obsidian’s native format is to name the file Title.md and not to track any YAML metadata by default at all. I guess it relies on the filesystem for tracking created/modified timestamps. On a quick scan I cannot see any easy options to tweak Obsidian’s behavior at all. I don’t see any obvious plugins either, though I’ve only done a cursory scan of what’s available.

Is there a way to do what I want?

Thanks!

[holroy]

Why do you think Obsidian doesn’t like that format?

You’re wrong in your description of it, but it’s a format that Obsidian considers a date it seems, at least if you use the format YYYY-MM-DD[T]HH:mm:ssZ

[CawlinTeffid]

@elliottslaughter

I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to make Obsidian work with this format

What do you want Obsidian to do? It can open those files just fine.

If you want Obsidian to create files like that…

• The Unique note creator can be configured to make filenames in that format (but only in a single folder, unfortunately).
• The Templates core plugin can help with the stuff inside the file — but you’ll have to trigger the template manually.
• I believe the Templater and Quick Add plugins can both trigger templates on file creation, and possibly generate the filenames, too.