Link to a file outside the vault on a

Help
1

What I’m trying to do

I want to link in Obsidian to a PDF that is located outside the vault on a network drive, e.g.
[[file:///Users/hans.mustermann … H:\data\directory01\directory02\example.pdf]]
because I don’t want to save all my GBs data-stuff (libre office-, word-, excel-files, mov, photoshop-images, …) in the Obsidian-Vault. And I don’t want to double all pdf really needed to Obsidian.

Note: I know, that this syntax with a blank in the middle doesn’t work.

Things I have tried

  • I copied the directory-link from the file explorer and added the filename with a backslash into an Obsidian-Link
  • I installed the plugin Advanced URI
2

Could try markdown link: [](<file:///...>)

3

I was able to successfully make it work by creating a shortcut of the specific folder and moving this shortcut to the Obsidian Vault. In Obsidian, you can see all the files within the folder, just like that they are store on obsidian vault. However, I found that it doesn’t work for every folder, and I’m not sure why.

Maybe you could give it a try.

See also here about the Symbolic links.

4

I think I’ve find the best solution of your need. Simply drag and drop the file you need from your native file explorer while holding Ctrl on Windows/Linux or Command on macOS to create file:/// absolute links to those files.