#1

Hey,

I am a huge fan of Obsidian! Right from the start!
I saw the benefits of this real gem…
And it’s is becoming better and better every day.

I decided to make Obsidian to be my first workflow tool and therefor I choose to use to ‘connect’ as many outside tools as possible to reduce the copy pasting as less as possible.

Something I see passing by regularly:
“Use tool x to do y and then activate plugin z on tool x to enable Markdown content, then copy the whole thing and paste it to Obsidian”…
Cumbersome :wink:

My solution:

  • Create a new GMail address name.surname.obsidian@gmail.com
  • Create an Inbox folder in your vault
  • Write a python script to access the inbox of this mailaddress, read all the messages, make Markdown files of the content, write them to the inbox folder using the Python GMail API library.
  • Run that script every x minutes (whatever your choice)

Advantages:

  • Share option which is available on every self-respecting App can be used to forward content to the Obsidian Inbox on whatever interesting stuff you are following (Feedly, Instagram, Podcasts, Pinterest, Twitter,…)
  • Inbox Markdown file is the start of new idea generation workflow without any hassle of copy-pasting
  • Works on every OS supporting Python (pretty much every OS) -> OS Independent solution
  • Keeps the workflow inside Obsidian which enable a less disturbing workflow as you are not going out of the environment to copy-paste stuff from other Apps which gets me distracted (don’t know about you of course)
  • …
  • Perhaps this sparks ideas for other ways of integrating external tools into Obsidian using this method?
  • Perhaps enhancments can be suggested?
  • Other remarks?

Thanks for your appreciated feedback!

9 Likes
#2

Awesome idea! I’ve been thinking about a similar script but one that works in the other direction. :upside_down_face:

I’m also trying to streamline a cumbersome process; creating markdown notes, copying the HTML preview, then pasting into Gmail. I’d like to be able to just add a certain tag, and have a draft email created with the HTML preview. The email address and subject could be pulled from tags or frontmatter, or the filename.

I was going to use Alfred but haven’t had time to work on it. Do you think your script could be modified to create drafts using the HTML preview? Maybe it could monitor a DRAFT folder and upload edits to the draft every so often.

1 Like
#3

I am unfamiliar with python. Are you suggesting that this method would enable the saving of youtube videos, spotify podcasts, articles, and other digital media directly into the Obsidian inbox? That would be incredibly helpful