I use a lot of emojis to name folders and files, in addition to the ones I write in my notes. I use the plugin Emoji Toolbar to select them. So, I know that the major problem is if you use dropbox to sync notes, but I use Google Drive.
Apart from that, in a long run, am I getting much risks with this emoji usage? Like losing data, or breaking links between notes.
Emoji are just Unicode characters, and are no more unusual than putting Japanese characters or other Unicode in a filename. Support will only become more ubiquitous over time; I wouldn’t worry about it.
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as long as you can search and quote them without obstacles, it will be ok.
And it may also affect the sorting. But if you use them systematically, it won’t a big issue.
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Thank you two for the enlightenment!
Unless you use Dropbox to host your vault. Dropbox does not support emojis in file names.
I’m relatively certain iCloud does, but don’t know about Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.
No. Special characters should not be used in file and directory names. Many references are available on line about this and I imagine the Dropbox link will confirm. There are plugins that allow you to have custom icons next to your file and directory named, which may suit your purpose.
Special characters may work with Google Drive but your pretty much stuck there.
Any modern filesystem supports Unicode:
It would be a bit tragic if people from countries that don’t use the Western ASCII character set couldn’t name files in their own language.
I just checked the Dropbox link and it specifically says not to use special characters. The point being they aren’t compatible everywhere. For example I don’t think you could push to GitHub. Unicode characters aren’t special characters.
Yes, the OP mentioned that in the first post - Dropbox specifically doesn’t support them.
But as I said in my original post, support will only become more ubiquitous. I wouldn’t avoid something that will only become more and more supported just because one particular platform doesn’t currently handle it. Looking towards the future of a vault, there’s no reason to be constrained by legacy standards of the 60s.
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Everyone has different needs. GitHub isn’t going away and I personally need to interact with it. And Unicode characters aren’t special characters but emojis do contain them, which I thought was the original question. Unicode is a non issue. You are free to name your files in most any language you want.
Can you explain what you mean by this? Is there something special about emoji which makes them different from other Unicode characters?
Regarding GitHub there’s no issue there - you can see my repo here which contains emoji in the filenames with no issues:
https://github.com/alangrainger/obsidian-gtd/tree/main/01%20Project%20Management
I’m glad you got it to work. When I started with Obsidian I jumped on the emoji train briefly and was unable to push to GitHub. I do web apps and they’re a no-no there for sure. Ymmv I guess.
By special characters I mean not part of Unicode which comprises all letters in different languages but not emojis. (Dash and underscore are fine too, of course.)
It’s all good. Whatever works for your comfort level. For me if want to visually tag files I prefer them to be beside the name and not part of it, but emojis as file names certainly look cool.
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You’re right, any modern filesystem should support unicode. However, not every cloud service does. That’s why I posted the Dropbox link.
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