Alfred workflow with dozens of features for controlling your Obsidian vault.
β Featured in the Alfred Gallery.
- Installation
- Alfred-based quick switcher
- Note-related features
- Screenshot features
- Utility features
- Plugins, themes, and settings
- Documentation searches
- Cheatsheet
- Credits
- About the developer
This workflow requires Alfred 5 with Powerpack.
- Install the Obsidian plugins Advanced URI & Metadata Extractor. Enable both plugins.
- Download the latest release at
GitHub.
Double-click the
.alfredworkflow
file to install it. - Set your vault path in the workflow configuration.
- Run the Alfred Command
osetup
. Obsidian then restarts.
The Alfred-based Quick Switcher is basically an enhanced version of Obsidian's Quick Switcher Core Plugin.
All the search features listed here do not directly search your vault, but rather use the metadata created by the Metadata Extractor Plugin on a regular basis. By default, this happens every 30 minutes, meaning recently created notes, recently renamed notes, or recent tag changes are not picked up at once. You can change the metadata refresh rate via the Metadata Extractor Plugin's settings.
o
: Open files in your vault.
This keyword searches all your notes, aliases, folders, and headings combined.
This works similar to Obsidian's built-in Quick Switcher, but can be triggered
without Obsidian running (in which case it opens Obsidian with the selected
note). Press β
to open the selected file in Obsidian.
β + β
: Open the file in a new tab. (Can be configured in the workflow settings to open in a new window or split instead.)β₯ + β
: Reveal the file in Finder.fn + β
: Append the content to the selected note.β + β
: Copy the Obsidian-URI to the selected file.β§ + β
: Browse a list of all links of the selected note (outgoing links, backlinks, external links.) See at the section "Browse Links" below for further information.- Press
β§
orβ y
to preview the selected note via macOS' Quick Look feature. Pressβ§
orβ y
again to close the preview. This feature requires QLMarkdown or Peek being installed. - π‘ The
o
-search respects theExcluded Files
setting from Obsidian and ignore files and folders added there. (Regex-Filters do not work properly though.)
Tip
There are various settings for appending and opening notes, which can be found in the workflow configuration.
- Add
filename
ortitle
to your search query, to display only files and no aliases, folders, or headings. For example,o obsidian filename
displays only notes that have theobsidian
in their filename. - Add
canvas
to your search to only display canvases (Obsidian 1.1). - Similarly, you can also filter for starred or recent files by adding
starred
orrecent
to your query. - You can add
#tag
to your search query to search only for files with a specific tag, for example,o foobar #moc
only displays notes with the namefoobar
that are also tagged with#moc
.## Smart Queries - Add
filename
ortitle
to your search query, to display only files and no aliases, folders, or headings. For example,o obsidian filename
displays only notes that have theobsidian
in their filename. - Add
canvas
to your search to only display canvases (Obsidian 1.1). - Similarly, you can also filter for starred or recent files by adding
starred
orrecent
to your query. - You can add
#tag
to your search query to search only for files with a specific tag, for example,o foobar #moc
only displays notes with the namefoobar
that are also tagged with#moc
.
This command also looks for aliases, when they are defined in the YAML-Header.
- Add
alias
to your search query, to only display aliases, for example,o obsidian alias
only displays notes that have the aliasobsidian
.# Search for Aliases This command also looks for aliases, when they are defined in the YAML-Header. - Add
alias
to your search query, to only display aliases, for example,o obsidian alias
only displays notes that have the aliasobsidian
.
When selecting a folder, you "browse" the selected folderβthis means that you are now searching only for files and folders inside that folder.
- When browsing a folder, you also have the option to create a new note in that
folder. Uses the template note defined with the setting
template_note_path
. - Furthermore, you can go up and browse the parent folder of the current folder. Basically, you can fully explore the folder structure of your vault via Alfred.
- Add
folder
to your search query, to only display folders, for example,o foobar folder
only displays folder that havefoobar
in their name. - When you are browsing inside a folder, use the query
..
or thenew
to quickly access the item for going up to the parent folder or creating a new note in that folder, respectively.# Search for Folders When selecting a folder, you "browse" the selected folderβthis means that you are now searching only for files and folders inside that folder. - When browsing a folder, you also have the option to create a new note in that
folder. Uses the template note defined with the setting
template_note_path
. - Furthermore, you can go up and browse the parent folder of the current folder. Basically, you can fully explore the folder structure of your vault via Alfred.
- Add
folder
to your search query, to only display folders, for example,o foobar folder
only displays folder that havefoobar
in their name. - When you are browsing inside a folder, use the query
..
or thenew
to quickly access the item for going up to the parent folder or creating a new note in that folder, respectively.
Displayed alongside the other search results are all headings in your vault.
Selecting a heading with β
opens the file at the respective heading.
β + β
: Copies either a Markdown link that uses the Obsidian URI or the wikilink to the selected file, depending on the setting. Also work with headings.- Add
heading
to your search query, to only display headings, for example,o foobar heading
only displays headings that includefoobar
. - Add
h1
,h2
, β¦ to your search query, to only display headings of a certain level, for example,o obsidian h2
only displays level 2 headings that includeobsidian
. - You can ignore certain (or all) heading levels with the respective workflow configuration.
Tip
Add more heading levels to h_lvl_ignore
if your search results become too
crowded.## Search for Headings
Displayed alongside the other search results are all headings in your vault.
Selecting a heading with β
opens the file at the respective heading.
β + β
: Copies either a Markdown link that uses the Obsidian URI or the wikilink to the selected file, depending on the setting. Also work with headings.- Add
heading
to your search query, to only display headings, for example,o foobar heading
only displays headings that includefoobar
. - Add
h1
,h2
, β¦ to your search query, to only display headings of a certain level, for example,o obsidian h2
only displays level 2 headings that includeobsidian
. - You can ignore certain (or all) heading levels with the respective workflow configuration.
Tip
Add more heading levels to h_lvl_ignore
if your search results become too
crowded.
Use β§ + β
on any search result of the main o
search to browse the links of
that note
- Displays a list of all links of the note: outgoing links, backlinks, and external links. (As of now, unresolved internal links are not displayed though.)
- Selecting an outgoing link or backlink opens the respective note.
- All the modifiers (
β/β/β₯/fn/β§ + β
) apply the same way as with the maino
search. - Yes, this means you can repeatedly use
β§ + β
to basically traverse your graph via Alfred. π
- All the modifiers (
- for external links:
- Selecting an external link with
β
opens the link in the default browser. - Press
β₯ + β
on an external link to copy the URL to the clipboard instead.
- Selecting an external link with
ot
: Search t
ags and subsequently files with that tag
- Display and search a full list of all tags in your vault.
- Select a tag with
β
to display & search all notes with that tag. - In the following list of your notes, all the modifiers (
β/β/β₯/fn/β§ + β
) apply the same way as they do with theo
search. - Press
β + β
instead to open Obsidian's search pane and search for the tag there.
- Select a tag with
- Use the workflow configuration to set whether nested tags should be merged with their parent or not.
ob
: Search b
ookmarked Files and Searches
- When you select a starred file, all the modifiers (
β/β/β₯/fn/β§ + β
) apply the same way as with the maino
search. - If you select a starred search, Obsidian opens the search pane with the respective query.
- This feature requires the Bookmark core plugin being enabled.
or
: Open r
ecent Files
- All the modifiers (
β/β/β₯/fn/β§ + β
) apply the same way as with the maino
search. - Only the 10 most recent files are displayed.
oa
: a
ttachments
- Searches only for attachments (non-Markdown files) in your vault.
β
opens the selected files in your default app. (Obsidian itself is not opened.) - The modifiers
β/β/β₯ + β
and the previewing (β§
orβy
) work the same way as with the maino
search. β§ + β
, however, works differently: it opens the file in Obsidian, if Obsidian is able to open them. (If not, the file simply is opened in your default app.)
oe
: Search all e
xternal links in your entire vault
β
: Opens the link in the browser.cmd + β
: Reveal the link in Obsidian.alt + β
: Copies the URL to the clipboard.
You can prepend or append icons to the results of any search based on the notes' tags, similar to the Supercharged Links Plugin.
- To do so, you have to add a file containing your emojis to the workflow
configuration
Supercharged Icons
. - Every line of the file should represent a pair of tag and emoji to be
assigned, separated by
,
. Use,,
so that the emoji gets appended instead of prepended.
Example
coding,π»
person,π€
seedling,,π±
pkm,π§ ,π‘
β¦results in:
π» Filename1
π€ Filename2
Filename3 π±
π§ Filename4 π‘
When the "Privacy Mode" checkbox is enabled, all notes with the cssclass
private
are censored when performing a search. This setting is meant to be
enabled temporarily, for example during screen-sharing.
The main search (o
) can also be used as Fallback Search for
Alfred,
basically a search that shows up when any Alfred search has no result.
To avoid accidentally triggering the Quick Look feature, it is suggested you
turn off activating QuickLook via shift and use β + Y
instead. You can do so
with in the Alfred Settings under Features β Previews
:
QLmarkdown and
Peek both
enable previewing of Markdown documents. Peek works with a wide range of other
file types than Markdown, but costs around β¬5. QLMarkdown
is free, but only
works for Markdown and requires some minor setup.
![screenshot of QLMarkdown](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/73286100/144729141-72d8cd41-8e45-43e0-a11a-ce98ba97c2ac.png)
on
: Create a n
ew note.
- File Name: Anything you type after the keyword
on
(for example,on foobar
) becomes the file name of the new note (for example,foobar.md
). (Note that the Filename Heading Sync Plugin may interfere with this.)- When triggered via
cmd + β
, the new note is created in a new tab.
- When triggered via
- Content: You can select a template note to use in the workflow
configuration. Only
{{title}}
is supported as placeholder and is replaced with the file name. Be aware that the template might be overridden by Folder Templates from the Templater plugin. - Location: The new note is placed in the folder specified in the workflow configuration. If the configuration is empty, it is placed in your vault root.
- π‘ There are various settings for creating new notes in the workflow configuration.
oo
or triggered via hotkey
: Append to your Scratchpad Note
- Quickly add text to the note set in the workflow configuration. (This command
is basically a quicker version of the
fn + β
mode of the Alfred-based Quick Switcher.)- When using
oo foobar
, appendsfoobar
to the note. - Triggered via hotkey, appends the current selection.
- When you add
#foobar
(for example,Inbox/Scratchpad-Note#Thoughts
) to path of the scratchpad file in the workflow configuration, the text is appended to the section with the heading "foobar."
- When using
Tip
There are various settings for the scratchpad in the workflow configuration. You can, for instance, use Alfred's Dynamic Placeholders to prefix the current date and time.
Triggered via Hotkey
: Take an OCR Screenshot.
- Similar to the default Mac Hotkey
β β§ + 4
, you are able to select part of your screen for a screenshot. However, instead of saving a screenshot, a new note is created which contains the OCR'ed content of the selection. - For best results, you should set the languages to be recognized in the
workflow settings, such as
eng+deu
for English and German. You can find out the code for your languages in this list. - π‘ There are various settings in the workflow configurations for OCR-screenshots.
Requirement
For the OCR-Screenshot Feature, you need to install
Tesseract. If you
use Homebrew, you can do so with the following command:
brew install tesseract tesseract-lang
Tip
The first time you use the OCR or image screenshot feature, you might need to give Alfred permission to record your screen. You can do so under the macOS system settings.
![Permissions for OCR Screenshots](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/73286100/131231644-a800c0b0-8dc2-4ae9-bd41-c3937741b94a.png)
Triggered via Hotkey
: Take an image screenshot.
- Similar to the default Mac Hotkey
β β§ + 4
, you are able to select part of your screen for a screenshot. The image is directly saved in your vault with the file nameScreenshot {date} {time}.png
and the image is embedded (![[image_file_name.png]]
) in the noteImages.md
in your vault root. - The images are saved in
{vault-path}/screenshots/
by default. You can use the workflow configuration to specify a folder in your vault where to save the images instead. - If the file
Images.md
already exists in your vault root, any subsequent screenshots are instead appended to this note. This is intended for taking screenshots in quick succession, for instance during a live lecture or presentation. - π‘ There are various settings in the workflow configurations for screenshots.
ow
: Switch to a different w
orkspace
- Displays a list of your workspaces. Select one to open the workspace.
- You can also manage your Workspaces from here, that is, saving, loading & deleting a workspace.
- Unsurprisingly, this workflow requires the Workspaces Core Plugin to be enabled.
ov
: Open V
aults in Obsidian, Finder, or the Terminal
- Select a Vault and press
β
to open it in Obsidian. β β
opens the root of the selected vault in your default Terminal. You can change the default terminal in the Alfred Settings.β₯ β
opens the root in Finder.β§ β
Control this vault with Alfred.
Note
The Metadata Extractor
and the Advanced URI
plugin need to be installed in
every vault you want to control, and osetup
needs to be run once.
obackup
: Create a backup
of your vault.
- Your whole vault is compressed into a zip file and then moved to the location you specified in the workflow configuration.
- This command respects the maximum number of backups you have set (workflow
configuration
max_number_of_bkps
) to prevent taking up too much disk space. When the number is reached, every new backup causes the oldest backup to be deleted. - The hidden folders
.obsidian
and.trash
are included in the backup, the.git
folder is excluded. - π‘ Advanced users: you can use the following AppleScript snippet to trigger a backup. This is useful to create automated backups via launchd, Cron jobs, or Keyboard Maestro.
tell application id "com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred"
run trigger "backup-obsidian" in workflow
"de.chris-grieser.shimmering-obsidian"
end tell
# pass 'no sound' as argument to turn off backup confirmation sound
Warning
Please be aware that this is a simplistic backup solution. While I did not have any problems with it, this workflow comes without any warranties, as stated in the license. If you want 100% safety, please use a professional backup solution.
ocss
: Access your css
files.
- Open a CSS snippet in your default text editor.
o.obsidian
: The hidden.obsidian
folder located in your vault root is opened in Finder.o.trash
: Open the hidden.trash
folder located in your vault root is opened in Finder. (Note that you have to selectMove to Obsidian trash
in the Obsidian settings under theFiles & Links
tab before deleted files can be found here.)oapplicationsupport
: Open Obsidian's Application Support folder.oplugins
: The plugin folder in.obsidian
is opened in Finder.opthemes
: The theme folder in.obsidian
is opened in Finder.
oupdate
: Update Plugins and Metadata used by this workflow
- Update your community plugins (and beta plugins installed via the BRAT Plugin).
- Refresh the metadata used for this workflow manually.
op
: combined Search of community p
lugins and community themes.
- Press
β
to open the plugin's GitHub repository.- Use
β + β
to open .the plugin in Obsidian's Community Plugin Browser instead. - Press
β₯ + β
to copy the plugin URI (obsidian://show-plugin?id=β¦
) to your clipboard. ββ₯ + β
: Copy the plugin link together with a description.fn + β
: open the plugin's page at Obsidian Stats.
- Use
- Only plugins officially included in the community plugins are displayed β plugins solely available via GitHub or still in review are not shown.
- Add
plugin
to the search query to only display plugin, for example, useop focus plugin
as search query to only display plugins with the termfocus
. - The
op
search also considers the name of the plugin's author, meaning the queryop JaneDoe
returns all plugins (and themes) authored by the userJaneDoe
.
op
: Combined Search of community p
lugins and community themes.
- Press
β
to open the theme's GitHub repository in the browser.- Use
β + β
to open the theme browser instead. (There are no separate theme pages in Obsidian Theme Browser that can be opened.) - Press
β₯ + β
to copy the theme URI (obsidian://show-theme?id=β¦
) to your clipboard. ββ₯ + β
: Copy the plugin link together with a description.- Use
β§
orβ + Y
to open a Quick Look Preview of the theme's promo screenshot. Pressβ§
orβ + Y
again to close the preview. fn + β
to open the theme's page at Obsidian Stats.
- Use
- Only themes officially included in the community themes are displayed β themes solely available via GitHub or still in review are not shown.
- Add
theme
to the search query to only display themes, for instance useop focus theme
as search query to only display themes with the termfocus
. - The
op
search also considers the name of the theme's author, meaning the queryop JaneDoe
returns all themes (and plugins) authored by the userJaneDoe
.
o,
: Search and directly open specific setting tabs.[^1]
- The search includes Obsidian main settings, quick access to the plugin and
theme browser, as well as settings for plugins. Press
β
to open the respective setting directly. β₯ + β
opens the local plugin folder in.obsidian/plugins/
in Finder.β§ + β
enables/disables the plugin.- βοΈ For developers:
β + β
opens the local plugin folder in your default Terminal. (You can change the default terminal in the Alfred Settings.)β + β
copies the plugin's ID. (Holdβ
to see the plugin's id.)fn + β
runsgit pull
in the plugin's directory.
Tip
o,
refers to the β ,
shortcut used to open the settings.
**oh
: Search the official Obsidian help
(documentation)
- This command mimics the search behavior on the official documentation site,
meaning that it also searches for headings inside individual documentation
pages.
- Press
β
to open in your default browser. - Use
β₯ + β
to copy the link to your clipboard.
- Press
odv
: Search the
dataview documentation.
- Press
β
to open in your default browser. - Use
β₯ + β
to copy the link to your clipboard.
odd
: o
bsidian d
eveloper d
ocumentation Search
Search the official Obsidian developer docs.
o
: All notesoe
: All external linksot
: Tagsob
: Bookmarked files/searchesor
: Recent filesoa
: Attachmentsoo
: Append/open to scratchpadon
: New noteow
: Workspace switcherov
: Vault switcheroh
: Documentation searchop
: Search plugins/themeso,:
Search settings and installed pluginsocss
: Open CSS snippets
- Big shout-out to @kometenstaub for developing the metadata extractor plugin, as this workflow is its main client.
- Also thanks to @Vinzent03 for his invaluable Advanced URI plugin, which enables Alfred to control various aspects of Obsidian.
- Most icons created by Freepik (Flaticon).
In my day job, I am a sociologist studying the social mechanisms underlying the digital economy. For my PhD project, I investigate the governance of the app economy and how software ecosystems manage the tension between innovation and compatibility. If you are interested in this subject, feel free to get in touch.
Important
Note that for questions, bug reports, or feature requests for this workflow, please open a GitHub issue, since it is better suited for technical support.