Links to nested heading not updating when heading is renamed

Bug reports
, ,
1

Steps to reproduce

Create two notes:

Note1

#Header1

## Header2


Note2

[[Note1#Header1]]
[[Note1#Header1#Header2]]

Rename #Header1 in Note1 to #Header99 using the “Rename this heading…” command.
The bug also occurs if renaming Header2 to #Header55 using this command.
It occurs for all levels of subheadings, but I’m just giving two examples here.

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

Y

Expected result

When renaming Header1, both instances of Header1 should be renamed to Header99.

Note2

[[Note1#Header99]]
[[Note1#Header99#Header2]]

When renaming Header2, Header2 should be renamed to Header55.

Note2

[[Note1#Header1]]
[[Note1#Header1#Header55]]

Actual result

When renaming Header1, only the link with the non-nested Header1 is renamed.

Note2

[[Note1#Header99]]
[[Note1#Header1#Header2]]

When renaming Header2, nothing changes.

Note2

[[Note1#Header1]]
[[Note1#Header1#Header2]]

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.8.10
Installer version: v1.8.9
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 24.5.0: Tue Apr 22 19:54:49 PDT 2025; root:xnu-11417.121.6~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 24.5.0
Login status: not logged in
Language: en
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none

Additional information

It is surprising that this doesn’t work. The Obsidian docs show that links to subheadings is valid syntax, see “Linking to subheadings”. Excerpt from the docs:

Linking to subheadings

You can add multiple hash symbols for each subheading.

For example, [[Help and support#Questions and advice#Report bugs and request features]] will create a link to Help and support > Questions and advice > Report bugs and request features.

Reproduced in a new vault with no community plugins enabled and no extra CSS.

3 Likes
2

I got the same error on Windows. It even got errors for the internal links on level 1 header.

Note1

# Header.L1

## Header.L2

[[#Header.L1#Header.L2]]
[[#Header.L1]]
  • For [[#Header.L1#Header.L2]]: Rename Header.L1 or Header.L2 results in nothing change!
  • For [[#Header.L1]]: rename normally!
3

I’d try clicking on Settings > Files and links → Rebuild vault cache (at the bottom) to start.

4

Thanks, tried but not worked in my case :melting_face:

5

thanks.

Links to nested headers are only partially implemented.

6

Any chance this will be implemented/fixed? Links to subheadings are pretty unusable as they are right now. Every time I rename a subheading, I would have to manually search to see if there are any links to it and then edit those links. This is really inconvenient. The command “Rename this heading…” command should be handling this.