Refresh button to reload markdown files

Feature requests
1

It would be good to have a refresh button that re-reads the Vault directories. I have a web clipper that saves a markdown file to the directory in Dropbox. The only way I have found to get the note to show up in Obsidian is to close and restart the app. As it does not natively refresh upon a new file added.

3 Likes
2

Ah so you can press CTRL-R to refresh the whole UI which is a workaround for now

3

As you add files, they should show up almost instantly in your Obsidian File Explorer, is that not happening?

4

I’ve added two markdown files to my vault directory, and neither show up - not after refreshing, nor after restarting Obsidian.

As I was typing this, I realized the files had .txt extensions. When I changed them to .md, they showed up immediately. I guess this is by design? It’s not obvious behavior.

5

I am having the same problem, sometimes it takes so long to a file get updated. With query blocks it is getting really annoying. Is this Ctrl + R fro refresh really is a thing? How can I refresh? (I am asking because this thread is old and probably a lot has happened since)

6

This would also help me greatly. I have one subfolder of my vault which I mount an encrypted container to. But every time I mount it, I have to restart Obsidian so it picks up the files that are then in the subfolder.

Ctrl R doesn’t seem to work for me.

7

Oh actually there is the Reload app without saving action, so you can assign a shortcut to that. It seems to do exactly what was being requested (and maybe Ctrl R is bound to that by default and I removed it?)

8

ctrl+r was originally the default but that got changed because people were running into problems by hitting it without understanding what it did. You can re-bind it.

1 Like
10

I’m having the same problem: after I add a new file Obsidian fails to recognize it. I must first close the app, then re-open it. Extremely annoying. To make things worse, when I try to “reload app without saving”, nothing happens. A nasty one-two combo: fails to reload automatically, fails to reload with function key.

I’m using Windows 11. Could that be relevant?

11

It’d be also very useful to add a “Save all and reload app” or “Save & reload active file/pane” command. Taking Obsidian Tracker as an use case example, currently when data in a tracker data md file is modified, one has to close the file, reopen it and the restore the pane layout manually, far from neat. As a workaround I now save my file first and then press Ctrl-R to reload, which costs extra keystroke and delay.

12

Here is a use case for adding a “reload/refresh current page/note” command: I use a screen clipping service called CleanShot. You can copy a window or a portion of your screen, and it will store the image in the cloud and generate a tiny URL. This can take a few seconds. As an optimization, CleanShot makes the URL available immediately so you can paste it into a document (an Obsidian note in this case) before the resource is available in the cloud. If I do that in Obsidian, I will only see the URL (or I will see nothing in Live Preview). I have to select a different note and go back to the original note to see the image. It would be very convenient to have a “refresh page/note” command that would just reload the note and have all my images appear once they are stored in the cloud.

2 Likes
13

my vault is on a NAS, i think that didn’t show up instantly.
thx

14

Just to add some details from my exeperience.

I am using Google Drive to store my Obsidian vault.

if I sit at the command line and type echo test >> test1.md then the file appears instantly in the Obsidian file explorer.

However if I create the file in Google Web interface and let it sync to my local hard disk then the file does not appear (until I do reload).

Also, If I open the new file in a an editor and make a change, then save it, the file appears in Obsidian as well.

Note: I have my Gdrive client configured to store my vault locally and be available offline. I am running Windows 11.

Some problem with the file notification with virtual files systems? Possibly a problem with Google Drive so not much can be done?

15

my vault is on a NAS (samba) and I’m having this issue

use case:

  • create card.png on another computer (tablet), save into attachments folder
  • want to add card.png to canvas, but the file list won’t refresh and show it
  • reloading the entire application works
16

Same here as @zerkshop

I sync with a NAS using FreeFileSync.

When FreeFileSync creates files, they don’t immediately show up in Obsidian.

17

When calling command “Reload app without saving” it does refresh

1 Like
18

I was having the same problem. I fixed it (at least so far in brief testing) by moving my vault to my computer and then using Drive to sync that folder instead of having the folder live within my main Drive folder.

You can do this by going to Drive → :gear: → Preferences → My Computer → Add folder

I’m not sure this would work if you needed to sync two windows computers, but I’m syncing one Windows computer, one Mac and an Android phone.

19

Same issue when using ZFS replication for file syncing. The underlying file changes but isn’t reflected in obsidian. But if I “touch blah.md” for a file I know that’s changed, then it’ll refresh the file immediately.

“Reload app without saving” is not good because it loses the scroll positions of everything and takes a whole while to re-orient yourself.