Widgets for Obsidian – iOS App

[Joschua]

Hi everyone!

I’ve built an app to add helpful Obsidian-related Widgets on your iPhone home screen. You can download it now from the Apple App Store.

Widgets

Quick Note

Tap to quickly record a note. This skips Obsidian app launch, meaning no waiting on the “Waiting for iCloud…” screen.

You can configure multiple destinations. For example your journal notes could take a “YYYY-MM-DD” format. On note creation, that gets parsed into 2024-09-17 and new notes are automatically created, or appended to previous notes.

This widget has been a game changer for my journaling workflow.

Actions

Launch any Obsidian URI action from your home screen.

Directly open an existing note, run a predefined search and much more. The configuration options are endless. With the Advanced URI plugin, you can run any Obsidian command from your home screen.

Pricing

This is the section I always scroll to first

• Free: Unlimited captures, unlimited actions, unlimited widgets, one destination
• Pro – $1.99/mo or $14.99/year: Unlimited destinations, Insider Discord, support development

Pro pricing is on a limited time early bird discount. If pricing is an issue for you, shoot me a DM and we can work something out.

Your thoughts…

The Widgets for iOS Feature Request thread has been a treasure trove for features. There is plenty I’d like to add to this app!

But I’d love to hear from you — Which feedback and feature requests do you have?

→ Again, you can try Widgets for Obsidian now!

[Stray-Sticky-Note]

Neat! I’ll kick a few bucks in for this. I ran into some trouble getting started: my destinations wouldn’t save, then after I had a destination set up the quick add function would say that I had no destination set. Resetting the app between each error did the trick, and the quick add seems to work fine!

[Stray-Sticky-Note]

It’s not a feature, but I’d be interested in some use cases that you have for using actions with your app. I not a super proficient iOS user.

[Joschua]

Widgets for Obsidian – iOS App

Neat! I’ll kick a few bucks in for this. I ran into some trouble getting started: my destinations wouldn’t save, then after I had a destination set up the quick add function would say that I had no destination set. Resetting the app between each error did the trick, and the quick add seems to work fine!

Thanks! Did that error occur just after you downloaded the app today, or did you download it a few days ago? I had hoped a recent update fixed that error!

If you just downloaded today, would you be okay if I send you a DM to debug further?

Widgets for Obsidian – iOS App

It’s not a feature, but I’d be interested in some use cases that you have for using actions with your app. I not a super proficient iOS user.

I’ve been using it essentially as a bookmark to quickly access a note. For example, I got a Dataview query to show all notes I took today. I’d then use the “Copy Obsidian URL” command, create a new action named “today”, and paste the url.

I’ve since moved my book management outside of Obsidian, but I would have used it to run templates to capture new books I want to read.

Another use case could also be to simply run the “Publish changes…” command to push your changes to Obsidian Publish!

[Stray-Sticky-Note]

@Joschua

Thanks! Did that error occur just after you downloaded the app today, or did you download it a few days ago? I had hoped a recent update fixed that error!

I actually downloaded it about 2 hours after you initially posted this thread. I’m open to helping troubleshoot if you’d like to DM me.

@Joschua

I’ve been using it essentially as a bookmark to quickly access a note. For example, I got a Dataview query to show all notes I took today. I’d then use the “Copy Obsidian URL” command, create a new action named “today”, and paste the url.

I’ve since moved my book management outside of Obsidian, but I would have used it to run templates to capture new books I want to read.

Another use case could also be to simply run the “Publish changes…” command to push your changes to Obsidian Publish!

Thanks! I’ll save these and see if I can adapt them to my processes.

[ernest67]

I also downloaded the app and gave it a try: great design and idea, however I’m unable to add the destination as another user suggested, and I could not use the widget to execute any “actions”.

That being said, I really appreciate your effort in creating this app! I have always wanted obsidian to have widgets and now this app can achieve the functionality I long desire!

[Joschua]

Thanks for the nice words! I’m glad you enjoy the design. I’m looking into the issue with destinations and actions.

Would you be alright for me to send you a DM for further troubleshooting as well?

[Hampton]

For anyone who needs more options, quick notes that skip Obsidian app launch can also be run using Shortcuts on macOS, iOS, iPadOS, WatchOS.

With iOS 18 / macOS 15, shortcuts can be run as Quick Actions, from Finder, from the Services Menu, from the Menu Bar, as Widgets, from the Home Screen, from the Control Centre, and from the Lock Screen, meaning that users don’t even have to unlock their devices to be able to add content to their vaults.

MacOS Shortcut update

A while back, I put this in: MacOS 12 Shortcut And it was good. But I thought I’d update how I’m using it now. [Screenshot 2024-08-13 at 08.23.49] The change here is that I’ve created an “Inbox” - it’s a folder within a Vault. That is my ‘dumping’ location for notes that need a quick capture. Then in File Path, if you right click, you can get Current Date as an option. If you set it to custom, you can use unicode standards. I like mine, of course, with yMMdhhmm as that will give a straight …

[ernest67]

Sure!

[roisie]

any chance that this will be available for android?

[Joschua]

Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with building apps on Android. So it likely won’t be available on Android, at least not anytime soon.

You might have seen this one Android widget that a community member worked on. (Although it seems like development is paused for now).

[Joschua]

Version 1.0.2 just released

• Addresses issues where destinations would save (thanks for the feedback @ernest67 and @Stray-Sticky-Note!)
• Improves performance for even faster capturing
• Adds support for iOS 18

You can manually update from the App Store now – or receive the auto-update in the coming days.

Previous destinations might need to be set again. Sorry for the inconvenience!

[Joschua]

Version 1.1.0 is live

Your destinations — available everywhere! You can…

• Select a destination in a widget. For even faster capturing.
• Add a Lockscreen widget
• Use a Control center widget
• Ask Siri: Try “Hey Siri, capture a quick note in Widgets for Obsidian”
• Find “Quick Note” in spotlight search

Also:

• Improved configuration for shortcuts

Update or download now!

[jpasholk]

This looks really cool!

I have a feature request though - can you add in the ability to use text with the date field?

Something like [Quick Note-]YYYY-MMM-DD

[Joschua]

Thank you!
That’s a great feature request – it’s actually included in the latest version which is just pending Apple’s approval at the moment. I’ll keep you posted on when it’s available!

[jpasholk]

Oh awesome!! Thanks!

[Joschua]

1.2.0

Features

• Templates support. You can set up custom templates for: new file creation, new entry capture. This could be a date stamp before each entry, custom properties or tags. Thank you for the suggestion @jpasholk
• Added translation in to Simplified Chinese

[jpasholk]

Nice!

Looks like {{date()}} isn’t working for me unless I’m doing something wrong. @Joschua

[Hampton]

Could it be the quotes – straight not curly? (They don’t look the same …)

[jpasholk]

Thanks @Hampton that was it!

@Joschua Can you add templating to the filename as well? And perhaps a {{clipboard}} tag?

Great work on this app though. It’s got a place in my control center.