New not a plugin: macOS app Obsidian Hot Corner MD: Quick Note style hot-corner preview

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Hi everyone!

I love Obsidian, but I kept doing the same tiny task all day: jumping into the app just to glance at one note (for me it’s usually my daily plan / checklist). I wanted something closer to a Quick Note / Hot Corners habit on macOS, so I built a small companion app.

App Demo

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What it is (and what it isn’t):

  • This is not an Obsidian plugin — it’s a macOS menu bar app.

How it works:

  • Pick one Markdown note (from your vault)

  • Hover into a chosen screen corner or press a hotkey → you get a floating Markdown preview

  • You can tweak which corners, preview width, and line limit

  • Click the preview to open the same note in Obsidian via obsidian://

Why I built it:

  • I wanted a “2-second glance” at one note while staying in whatever app I’m currently using.

Notes / gotchas:

  • Hot corners rely on global mouse tracking, so macOS will likely ask for Input Monitoring permission.

  • Tested on macOS Tahoe 26 (target is 12.4+), but I’d love confirmation from people on older macOS versions too.

Links:

If anyone wants to try it, I’d really appreciate any feedback — even small UX nitpicks.
I’m especially interested in what feels awkward or unnecessary, and what you’d change first.

In particular:

  • multi-monitor setups (which screen should “own” the corner?)
  • corner sensitivity / accidental triggers
  • anything confusing around permissions
  • what you’d expect from this workflow (e.g. better positioning, theming, more than one note, etc.)
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Quick update on improvements:

  • Homebrew (macOS) support is now available

    Install:
    brew install --cask nbox/tap/obsidian-hot-corner-md
    Uninstall:
    brew uninstall --cask --zap obsidian-hot-corner-md

Next up: I’m planning quick note editing without opening Obsidian.

Also, I automated builds on version bumps in GitHub Actions — mostly to make my own release process easier :slightly_smiling_face:

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Thanks! Yep — that’s exactly the direction I’ve been thinking about.

My next step is quick inline editing (so you can tweak the note without opening Obsidian).

And longer-term, I want the hot corners / hotkeys to be fully configurable, not limited to a single note:

  • e.g. bottom-left = today’s TODO, bottom-right = overall plan / project overview
  • plus hotkeys that can open different notes (multiple “presets” you can cycle through)

If you have a preferred workflow (e.g. per-project set, daily/weekly views, or a small dashboard note), I’d love to hear what would feel most useful.

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5

This is great so far!
Would be most useful for me if it could automatically connect to the latest note in a folder (so it goes to my latest daily note). Or maybe, similar to apple notes, it creates a new note, and defaults to that “quick” note until that note is organized?

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Coming back to comment this before I forget. The small padding between the popup note and the corner of my screen leads me to accidentally clicking whatever is behind the note.

UX wise, I’d like to be able to flick my mouse to the corner of my monitor, and open whatever note I have there, without worrying about adjusting my mouse.

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Hey @applepieeeeeeee, thanks for the feedback! You’ve shared some really good ideas.

I’ll try to roll them into the next update. I’m a bit busy with another project right now, but I think I can ship an ObsidianHotCornerMD update in ~2 weeks.

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not a rush! thanks for the great app

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