I have released a new plugin called “Recent Files” to add a new pane in the sidebar showing the most recently opened files.
The big selling point is that you can omit directories or files from the list. For example, I use it with my daily notes omitted since they are easily accessed from the Calendar plugin.
Check it out!
You may also be interested in my other plugins:
Dear Tony, I hava found your new plugin so useful. I really was waiting for one coming like this one ! I’m really happy with what you’ve delivered so I bought you a coffee to thank you.
May I suggest to add a little fonction we miss ? When I click into a note name in the recent list pane, it opens this recent note but replace the current note being editing. Could it be possible to add the hotkey CTRL+clic so that the recent note opens into a new pane, thus allowing to keep the actual editing note ? Thank you so much for your really appreciated work ! Olivier (France)
Thanks again for that 
Yeah, It should be possible to do that. I’ll look into it. You can track progress here: https://github.com/tgrosinger/recent-files-obsidian/issues/7
Thank you very much Tony 
Very nice plugin, thanks. But wouldn’t it be maybe better to remove the icon from the left sidebar? Because you basically only need to click it once to add the pane, but afterwards clicking on it doesn’t do anything. Maybe it would be possible to just add the pane when activating the plugin in the settings?
That sounds like a good idea. Will do.
Or you may give the user to have the possibility to choose whether he wants to show the icon or he prefers to conceal it ? Some other plugins offer this function.
@tgrosinger
Hi Tony,
I’m writing there to you because I don’t know the way to join you. Sorry if it’s not the right place.
I was thinking of a new idea for a plugin and of course, was thinking of you as you seem to master this kind of script
Here is the idea : for some long notes, it coud be useful to know where you are when you read… What about a kind of line, up to the note and this line would keep with you progress when reading, begining longer and longer as you keep on reading. When you are finished with your readind, this line on the top on your note cannot be longer : it takes all the width of the pane/note. Sorry not so easy to explain in english (I’m french) but I’m pretty sure you already saw the “time line” on certain sites/blogs. The goal of this progressing bar/line is to help you see where you are in term of progress in your reading. Hoping you’ve been able to understand this idea and praying for you to write such a plugin if you wish to. HAve a very good day. Oliver
(Off topic) @Oliver
There is scroll-bar on right side of such long note. What about just making the scroll-bar more visible by some CSS instead of adding another feature to the screen-space?
But you have good idea to make do color portion above slider differently from portion under slider so we see the position of slider at first glance. Maybe the portion above slider can be green and the portion under slider would have color of text background to look tidy (or be red).
@tgrosinger Is it possible to enable page-preview on hover in this “history” pane as in File-Explorer?
Edit: Related feature requests:
It looks like the page-preview is done by an official plugin. I’ll have to do some research to see if I can have it recognize my view too, but my gut feeling is that I won’t be able to if it doesn’t work already. I’ll check with the Obsidian devs.
@Oliver, that sounds like an interesting plugin idea, however I think posting that in the plugin ideas forum would be a good idea. I’ve got my hands pretty full with Slated right now, so I’m currently not looking for new plugin ideas.
Dear Tony,
Thanks a lot for such a nice plugin. At first I was actually looking for a tool to show recently modified files, but recently opened files is close enough and works great. The only downside that I found is that when I move from one machine to another I see a different history of recently opened files. For example, I just got back from work and need to finish a few things and the history that I see reflect only the stuff that was working on at hope early in the morning.
Do you think it’s possible to add an option to show recently modified files instead of recently opened? This will allow to synchronize history between different machines seamlessly.
I’m not seeing a way to read the modified times through the Obsidian API, so I can only see file modifications as they occur. That would have the same syncing problems though.
I think the real issue here is that Obsidian does not yet sync plugin data. For my personal Vault I actually do sync plugin data between machines using a git repo.
Files that are already open, could be indicated in “Recent files list” e.g. by prefixed icon.
/ 🕓 \_____
| ↱ fileA | //open
| fileB | // closed
| ↱ fileC | // open
| ↱ fileD | // open
| fileE | // closed
| fileF | // closed
| fileG | // closed
Clicking on such icon would activate corresponding pane while clicking on filename would behave as it does now. (Last active pane when the same file is opened in multiple panes.)
If the icon cannot be clickable separately from filename for some technical reasons, then there could be option in settings to activate existing pane on click (if it exists) and open in new pane on Ctrl+click or Ctrl+Shift+click.
Alternatively, open files (filenames) could be displayed by different style (e.g. bold, text color, or text background color) instead of occupying more screen space by icon.
Is this possible?
Hi @malecjan,
Thank you for the suggestion. It sounds like what you are describing is possible, however I am currently working on another plugin and do not have plans to add large new features to the Recent Files plugin for a while.
If anyone feels inspired though I welcome pull requests!
Is there a way to assign a hot key to the pane? I looked for Recent Files when I the hotkeys list, but nothing was listed.
Hi @tgrosinger this is a great plugin! Congrats for getting this done. I read somewhere that it also supports a breadcrumb kind of file path inside the note. Which basically means, you can see where the note comes from. I was very excited about this feature. But I couldn’t figure out how to turn that on in options. Is what I am asking for not in your plugin? Or am I doing something wrong?
I have no idea what i’m doing wrong but this plugin is showing nowhere after installing it?
Nothing looks like the sreenshots.
I am facing the same issue. I have just installed the plugin, but I cannot find it anywhere. Even when I use Ctrl/Cmd P to launch it.
I love this plugin. Simple and useful. A tip to ensure a universal recent files list on all devices for a synched vault using the official Obsidian Sync: ensure that “Installed community plugins” is turned on in the Sync options on all devices. This will sync plugins and settings, which includes the recent files data for this plugin.
I have been using this plugin for a year.
I hope that this will be a default feature of Obsidian Core.
Thank you Tony Grosinger!