Time stamps as attachment filenames

Currently attachments pasted from the clipboard (images) get stored with a filename like Pasted Image <n>.png.

This works to avoid collisions - but it duplicates information and carries no additional meaning.

  • “Pasted image” for a user states the same as “.png”.
  • “Pasted image” is devoid of any context where/when an image was added.

I’d like to see auto filenames with time as context (e.g. 202006031250.png) or maybe even the current note title (e.g. my new note.png, my new note 1.pngetc.) or a combination of noth (e.g. 202006031252 my new note.png).

Collisions can be avoided with a suffix like today. But these kind of filenames would at least carry some meaning/context.

12 Likes

I’d prefer to have the copied image named after its md5 hash.

If I’m copying several times the same image, there won’t be any duplicates.

1 Like

I often do a screenshot of part of my screen and paste it into my notes. Currently, the pasted image will have a name similar to ‘Pasted Image’. I propose to change the naming scheme and use the title of the note as the filename prefix (better yet, with the current paragraph included in the filename). So, if I’m pasting an image from my clipboard into “mail server issue #analysis” the filename becomes “mail-server-issue_analysis” or similar - it’s enough if it has any meaning at all.

5 Likes

Possibly related: Time stamps as attachment filenames

1 Like

The current scheme makes it very difficult to separate images and media into a folder of its own, since if you ever paste anything in again the naming will restart the numbering. This means our file explorer is only useful up to “P,” since after that is just “Pasted Image X” as far as the eye can see… Would be a very helpful improvement. Typora names pasted images after the timestamp, which sounds like a really simple solution.

1 Like

This would be great to have (inheriting name of the image from note)

1 Like

This wil be implemented in an upcoming release.

2 Likes

Since version 0.8.15 timestamps are used for pasted images. While it’s better, I feel this is still far from perfect. I would really appreciate it if you would consider giving us some options to choose our own naming scheme.

2 Likes

+1. In fact the options suggested by the OP were not entirely implemented yet:

  • date-time (v0.8.15)
  • current note title TBD
  • note title + date-time TBD

–EDITS–
new feature request for additional naming options
If you wish to use your note titles as naming scheme for pasted image, pls upvote here.

1 Like

Please, make a separate feature request for 2 and 3

Request created.

I’ve found a partial temp. solution to this problem on Windows until it is implemented: Use ShareX

These settings make it work nicely with Obsidian

  • After capture task: Enable ‘Copy file to clipboard’
  • Hotkey settings:
    • Capture region settings:
      • Set to ‘Print Screen’
      • Upload: Enable ‘Override upload settings’
      • File naming: Replace both patterns to: image-%y%mo%d%h%mi%s or your pattern
    • Start/Stop screen recording (GIF) settings:
      • Set to ‘Ctrl + Print Screen’
      • Upload: Enable ‘Override upload settings’
      • File naming: Replace both patterns to: mov-%y%mo%d%h%mi%s or your pattern

This creates a copy file somewhere else (your default folder) and then Ctrl+V can be used to paste in Obsidian. A bit ineficient as a file copy is created but you can either delete those at some point or point it to a default folder in Obsidian.

1 Like