URL Scheme

[ryanjamurphy]

An Obsidian URL scheme would be great.

Ideas…

Open a vault

obsidian://open-vault?vault=some-vault-name

Open a specific note

obsidian://open-note?vault=some-vault-name&filename=some-note-title

New note in Vault

obsidian://new-note?vault=some-vault-name&filename=some-folder%2Fsome-note-title

Append to a note

obsidian://append?vault=some-vault-name&filename=some-note-title

There’s likely other ideas that’d suit a URL scheme. Overall this would make a number of aspects of automating Obsidian easy for users.

[argentum]

I’d love to be able to open obsidian from other places, with something like obsidian://path/to/my/file. Zotero handles this through URL protocols.

This is definitely related to Command Line Interface to open files/folders in Obsidian from the terminal , but not limited to the CLI.

An example of how I would use it would be something like the following:

1. Find a note I have and get a link from one of the header buttons
2. Add a task to todoist with markdown formatting, e.g. Add state of the art section to [My note](obsidian://path/to/my-note)
3. Whenever the task is due, I click the link and obsidian opens My Note

Edit: Also sort of related to Open links in Obsidian to other applications, except the case is reversed.

[VoltaireNoir]

This would be great feature. It’s something I wanted to write about as well. It will help us link to pages that are in other Vaults and also add attachments without copying them to the attachments folder.

[ryanjamurphy]

@argentum @VoltaireNoir Note that your posts replies have been moved to an earlier feature request for URL schemes.

[rkaplan]

I totally agree with the suggestion of an obisidian:// scheme to link from external apps.

Considering that Obsidian prides itself first and foremost about supporting linking, it seems quite ironic if the linking is only possible internally but an external app cannot link to an Obsidian vault or .md file.

[rkaplan]

Just bumping this up to see if there are any further thoughts/plans with this suggestion.

31 people have “liked” the initial suggestion by @ryanjamurphy so clearly he is on to something - and I agree.

The documentation for Obsidian emphasizes that “Links are first-class citizens”; why limit those links to within Obsidian. The software would be so much more helpful if it were possible to place obsidian:// links inside Devonthink or Curio or Tinderbox etc as an additional type of item to be added to those projects.

[subie]

I would like to see this in Obsidian as well, this would make Obsidian more open to other apps.

[borisanthony]

Was going to write up basically exactly this, with one precision:
Invoking “Open Specific Note” should create that note if it doesn’t already exist.

Use case scenario:
I publish one of my Vaults to the web via Jekyll. I should be able to click on any [[Note name]] link (which I handle creating via Jekyll templating) that doesn’t exist and that launches Obsidian and creates that note. This allows ad-hoc specific note creation if I happen to viewing my published Vault and feel inspiration take me (without having to switch to Obsidian, go to a Vault, Create file, etc…). I suppose theoretically “New Note” would do in this case, but creating a new note when Open finds it doesn’t exist is so much more graceful somehow. imho anyways.

thanks and looking forward to Obsidian URL scheme!

[borisanthony]

Sorry for the extra post but to add my vote here a bit more emphatically…

Supporting this feature is important because the reality of notetaking (and “digital gardends” and PKMs and Zettlekastens and and and) is that no one app can accomodate everybody’s many needs and desires. Every one of us has varying needs, varying tools, varying output targets etc…

This means that everyone comes up with their own strategies and—important here—systems of note taking tools and workflows. Fitting neatly into those workflows and systems is what allows users to really get multiplied value out of an application like Obsidian.

Yes, URL Schemes are a geeky thing, but those geeks who will use it are figuring out the cowpaths which can be paved later into new features and tools and value creation.

Copy/Paste -> Pipe (by rough means, like URLs) -> “Share” + Automation integrations.

Anyways, hopefully “preaching to the choir” here.

[zahanm]

It would be nice to have the ability to link to a note such that it is opened in Obsidian from an external app. For instance, I might maintain a todo list in another app and want to reference a note that has further details. Using just link handling by the OS, a click in that app would ideally deep link me into Obsidian with said note open.

This would be useful to wire up my workflows that exist outside just Obsidian.

I’ve seen other apps use x-callback-url to expose an API to go with such deep-links, but that’s icing on top.

[sam.baron]

Related https://forum.obsidian.md/t/obsidian-as-default-app-to-open-md-files/314

[95omega]

This is a must have…

[zahanm]

Thanks, yeah - related though not exactly the same. A direct link would presumably open in the same vault as when you captured the link.

[ryanjamurphy]

Previously requested: URL Scheme

Moderator note: I am not linking to myself here. I posted this reply to a different thread before I was knighted moderatored. Now that I am omnipotent, I have merged the two threads.

[borisanthony]

@zahanm

I’ve seen other apps use x-callback-url to expose an API to go with such deep-links, but that’s icing on top

It’s not “icing on top”, it’s literally the way to do it. @ryanjamurphy got the goods going in the thread he linked above.

[rigmarole]

That default .md open is slightly related. But not really. (It’s a good idea too!)

The x-callback-url would allow you to embed links in other apps, like your task manager. So you can reference certain Obsidian documents and click directly from your calendar for example.

Example: You could put a few links to related Obsidian documents in the description of one of your projects, in Things 3. I do this regularly with Scrivener, keeping detailed notes related to a project in my Scrivener doc.

Things 3, Scrivener, DevonThink and a few other apps support this. So you can glue different apps together.

(Things 3 and Drafts even have ways of creating content and templates with that scheme too.)

[teachmindset]

+1 for call back - being able to glue Obsidian to THINGS and Scrivener would be life changing.

[jellishero]

Similar to Notion’s links, Obsidian could use links of its own that others can use to open Obsidian and access files from a given vault.

[T.Adler]

with this feature I can integrate other tools with obsidian better!

[luckman212]

This is one of the most important features IMO. Being able to directly link to notes from things like Alfred Workflows, shell scripts, Hook, Emails, etc. is a big boost. Hope this comes to fruition one day!