Move notes if necessary

Feature requests
1

Use case or problem

Literally, my use case is “I just use *nix.” And I try to move notes between different folders of Obsidian vault.

Now this only works if the directory is entirely owned by a single file system. If the directory contains mount points, the note won’t move between the mount points. But the ability to mount anything anywhere is one of the fundamental characteristics of Unix file systems.

Particular use cases may include mounting files from external media, network storage, the cloud, a decrypted disk, or multiple overlayed directories. On MacOS and Linux.

I’d like Obsidian to not create any pitfalls in basic system usage, and just behave like any other application that works with files.

Proposed solution

Obsidian should try to move the files not only rename them.

  • Renaming is an atomic procedure within a single file system.
  • Moving works between file systems. It is not atomic: it may involve reading a file, writing it under a new name, and then deleting the original.

When moving files, we don’t need to worry about the low-level nature of the file system (mount points or anything else). We simply need to take the data from one location and write it to another, leaving the rest to the OS. It is not even Unix-specific.

If a file cannot be renamed (efficiently), it can be moved (flexibly).

Current workaround

  1. Minimize Obsidian
  2. Launch a file manager (Finder, Dolphin, Gnome Files)
  3. Find the note as a file
  4. Drag the file to another directory within the vault
  5. Return to Obsidian
  6. Refresh Obsidian

Literally any file manager or utility can easily move files. Unfortunately, this detracts from Obsidian’s usability.

Related feature and bug requests

The incomplete implementation of the move operation gives rise to topics where symbolic links or mounting are seen as the problem.