Periodic Notes + Templater - Automatically create periodic notes

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1

I created this code to automatically create daily/weekly/monthly/yearly notes.

Every time you open Obsidian it will check if there is already a file for the day/week/month/year using the patterns and folder path you give, and if there isn´t, it will automatically create one.

You can also use Templater’s “Folder Templates” to automatically apply the templates you need for each file.

<%*
async function createIfNotExists(tp, filepath){
	if (!(await tp.file.exists(filepath))){
		app.fileManager.createAndOpenMarkdownFile(filepath)
	}
}

await createIfNotExists(tp, "Journal/Daily Journal/" + tp.date.now("YYYY/YYYY-MM-DD") + ".md")

await createIfNotExists(tp, "Journal/Weekly Journal/" + tp.date.now("YYYY/gggg-[W]ww") + ".md")

await createIfNotExists(tp, "Journal/Monthly Journal/" + tp.date.now("YYYY/YYYY-MM") + ".md")

await createIfNotExists(tp, "Journal/Yearly Journal/" + tp.date.now("YYYY") + ".md")
%>

How to use

  • Create a new file. (I named mine “Templater Startup”)
  • Copy the code inside.
  • Adjust the folders and file name patterns according to your periodic notes configuration.
  • On Templater settings, scroll down to “Startup Templates” and add the file.
9 Likes
2

This is amazing!!!

3

Hi,

I find this amazing. Though, I run into an issue every time I try and use the startup template. I work on Mac. Maybe the problem is that I need to change some piece of code to adapt it to Mac and I am not familiar with javascript.

So the error I run into most of the time seems to be a path problem. Instead of going into the path I set as “Journal/DailyNote”, for example, the function goes into the templates folder and there it looks for the path I define. Doing so, it doesn’t recognise the path I defined and therefore creates that path inside the templates folder. In addition, the folder templates I defined for each path sometimes work and sometimes don’t.

Here below the code I am using in my TemplaterStartup:

<%*
async function createIfNotExists(tp, filepath){
	if (!(await tp.file.exists(filepath))){
		app.fileManager.createAndOpenMarkdownFile(filepath)
	}
}

await createIfNotExists(tp, "Journal/DailyJournal/" + tp.date.now("YYYY/DD-MM-YYYY") + ".md")

await createIfNotExists(tp, "Journal/WeeklyJournal/" + tp.date.now("YYYY/gggg-[W]ww") + ".md")

await createIfNotExists(tp, "Journal/MonthlyJournal/" + tp.date.now("YYYY/MM-YYYY") + ".md")

await createIfNotExists(tp, "Journal/QuarterlyJournal/" + tp.date.now("YYYY-[Q]Q") + ".md")

await createIfNotExists(tp, "Journal/YearlyJournal/" + tp.date.now("YYYY") + ".md")
%>

Looking forward to seeing if any of you guys can find a solution to my problem. (:

Cheers

4

An update on my problem. I understood that the main problem in the behaviour of my periodic note startup is that it goes and check the last folder I had opened before closing obsidian. Does anyone has a suggestion on how to fix this?

5

Thank you so much for this - my use of Weekly and Quarterly notes was hit or miss because I would forget to create them. Now they are just sitting there waiting for my input - this has been the push I needed! Thanks!

7

I know this is way late, but I ran into the exact same issue. Here’s how I fixed it.

<%*
async function createIfNotExists(tp, filepath){
	if (!(await tp.file.exists(filepath))){
		app.vault.create(filepath,"")
	}
}

await createIfNotExists(tp, "/Daily/" + tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") + ".md")

await createIfNotExists(tp, "/Weekly Priorities/" + tp.date.now("gggg-[W]ww") + ".md")
%>

Basically I replaced app.fileManager.createAndOpenMarkdownFile(filepath) with app.vault.create(filepath,"").

Also, I added a / in front of the directories I wanted to save the new files in. See the createIfNotExists function calls.

Hope this helps!

8

I know this is old but I’m struggling to get this to work. It generates the notes for me but they are always blank note with the date as the title.

Anyone had this issue and fixed it?

Already tried the suggestion in the previous reply and got the same result