Is there any way to merge multiple .md note files into one .md note file while retaining the original filenames in the result?

[HongDaLiNi]

hi y’all ,

Motivation for asking this question

until recently I have become aware of the drawback of having my journal in individual notes for each day, each week, each month, etc. Having too many individual notes creates clutters in the vault and makes it hard to make sense from past to present into the future - there’s more friction switching between notes than just scrolling down.

What I’m trying to do

Therefore, I am thinking about merging ALL of my previous journal notes into one single large note, and distinguishing each day, week, month, etc. using the 6 headings that markdown syntax allows me (i think that would be adequate), so the original filenames of the small notes turn into headings in the big note;

I imagine doing that will also allow backlinks pointing specifically to a particular day, week, month, etc., by typing for example [[Big Journal#2023-01-01]], but this is to be tested in real-life use.

The question in specificity

So does anyone have any experience to share regarding this topic? know any way to merge multiple .md note files into one .md note file while retaining the original filenames in the result automatically?

Got hundreds of journal notes. It will take ages to get this done manually.

My thanks for your time reading this xx

[holroy]

See and join in on the following recent thread:

One single massive daily note instead of a note per day

Has anyone tried using a single daily note file instead of a different file every day, like described here? I feel like daily notes are so deeply embedded in Obsidian and its plugins, that this unusual workflow may potentially break too many features.

[ariehen]

Not exactly what you’re asking for, but I did something similar with past daily notes before the New Year. This quickly and easily embeds multiple notes into one note but keeps the originals. Searching content in the note itself won’t work, but if you find something you need it’s easy to copy or jump to the original. Might be useful.

• Install and enable the Waypoint Community plugin.
• Create a note in a folder with the same name, e.g., 2021.

• In that 2021 note, use Waypoint to create a list of every note in that folder.
• Remove the begin and end %% Waypoint %% lines.

• Select all links and Toggle bullet list (command pallete) to remove the bullets if you want to.
• Select all links again and pick Replace from the tab header or three vertical dots. Replace all [[ with ![[

• Enjoy all your 2021 journal entries in one place!