I have locally hosted pictures in the “Pictures” folder on two Windows computers that I use Obsidian on. I’d like to be able to link to these pictures. I know that I can use ctrl+ drag 'n drop the pictures into an Obsidian document to link to an external picture, producing a link that looks something like
However, the “Pictures” folder actually have different absolute paths on the two computers, so this picture only shows up correctly on one of the PCs. Is there a way to refer to the “Pictures” folder by the alias, rather than using the full absolute path name? I’ve already tried constructions like
Have you considered creating a hard link on both computers? Looks like you’re using Windows 10 or 11.
Basically, a symbolic link (This specific kind is also called a hard link or directory junction) allows you to create what appears to be a second directory that mirrors the first. The new directory only links to the target directory, but the OS and applications running on it can’t tell.
Steps: (You’ll repeat these on both machines, only changing the remote directory path for each)
Hit Window key.
Type “CMD” without the quotes.
Open Command Prompt as administrator. You can click “Run as administrator” or right-click on the Command Prompt executable and then select “Run as administrator”.
Decide a consistent path that you’ll create on each computer. Example: c:\Pictures.
Create the hard link with the following command:
mklink /J C:\Pictures C:\Users\Username1\Pictures
If you have spaces in either path, you’ll surround them with double quotes: “C:\Users\User Name\Path To Pictures”
On the other computer, you’ll do the same, but change the path to your pictures directory:
mklink /J C:\Pictures C:\Users\Username2\Pictures
Both machines will now have a consistent C:\Pictures directory. Assuming they share the same files and directory structure, Obsidian won’t be able to tell the difference.
You could also set up something like a Dropbox account and do the same, etc.