Keyboard Shortcut to **Toggle** Outline (instead of opening a new outline pane)

Feature requests
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1

Use case or problem

I configured a keyboard shortcut (hotkey) to “Open the Outline for the current file” in Obsidian’s settings.
Then each time I use this hokey, Obsidian opens up a new pane, which is the expected behavior according to the name of the hotkey.
However, I’m used to using hotkeys that act as a toggle to show a pane if not present or hide when already displayed.
This is why I end up having a new outline pane opened each time I try to close/hide the existing one.

Proposed solution

  • Option 1: Change the behavior of the hotkey to act as a toggle to show/hide the Outline pane, instead of opening up a new pane each and every time (=> UX breaking change)
  • Option 2: Add another dedicated hotkey to toggle the outline

Current workaround (optional)

Close the Outline pane(s) opened manually (cross icon) as no hotkey exists for this purpose. I can live with this workaround but this could be an easy and useful fix/FR.

2

This is a workaround.

Have the outline visible on one of the sidebars. Then use the sidebar toggle. Both left and right sidebars have hotkeys to toggle them. This is what I use for outlines most often.

3

That’s what I do too. Works nicely.

4

This works fine.
Thank you @mano and @DandyLyons for the help. :heart_eyes:

6

+1

A hotkey option to simply “toggle the outline of the current file” is still needed in April 2026. The workaround proposed above doesn’t work for the sidebar (including outline view) in additional windows beyond the base window.