O_O is back! Every October, the Obsidian community turns “I should make that” into “I made that!” Whether you’ve been tinkering with a plugin, theme, vault, guide, or video, this is your month to finish it and share it.
This year the Obsidian team will also be working on our own project, a new survey we’re calling State of Obsidian.
Take the State of Obsidian survey
In May, we launched the new Obsidian Community, and since then the number of plugins and themes has more than doubled to over 8,000 projects!
We thought this would be a great opportunity to reimagine our annual Gems of the Year awards and report on how you are using Obsidian in 2026. This first survey will also set a baseline for how the community continues to evolve going forward.
As you know, we take privacy seriously. The Obsidian app doesn’t collect personal data, and our developer guidelines prohibit plugins from including telemetry. So the State of Obsidian survey is how you can tell us about your favorite plugins, themes, tools, and ways to use Obsidian. We’ll compile this data into a report that we will share publicly by the end of the year.
Do you have an existing plugin? Give it a tune-up with the APIs we’ve added since last October:
The new Settings API in Obsidian 1.13 makes your settings searchable.
If your plugin stores API keys, passwords, or other secrets, explore SecretStorage and SecretComponent to let people use secrets they manage in the Obsidian Keychain.
Your project doesn’t have to be a plugin. Refresh a theme, share a vault, write a guide, or make a video that helps someone discover a new way to use Obsidian. If you’ve been waiting for a nudge to release it, this is it!
Join us on Discord in the Obsidian October channel to share what you’re making as it takes shape, ask for help when you get stuck, and lend a hand on someone else’s project. Rock on! 🎸🪨
Welcome to r/ObsidianMD! This subreddit is a space to discuss, share, and learn about Obsidian. Before posting, check out the following resources to find answers, report issues, or connect with the community.
We also really do enjoy your memes, but they belong in the r/ObsidianMDMemes subreddit. :)
Please be sure to read our Code of Conduct to help make this space an awesome place to discuss all things Obsidian. Please, don't be a shill.
Official resources
In addition to Reddit, there are several official channels for getting help and engaging with the Obsidian community:
Obsidian forum – Ask questions, share tips, and report issues.
Obsidian Discord – Chat with other users and developers in real time.
Need help with Obsidian? Check the official documentation:
The Obsidian community maintains the Obsidian Hub, a large collection of guides, templates, and best practices. If you’d like to contribute, they’re always looking for volunteers to submit and review pull requests.
Library resources
Obsidian relies on several third-party libraries that enhance its functionality. Below are some key libraries and their documentation. Be sure to check the current version used by Obsidian in our help docs.
Lucide Icons – Provides the icon set used in Obsidian.
MathJax – Used for rendering mathematical equations.
Mermaid – Enables users to create diagrams and flowcharts.
Just recently passed my country's physician licensing exams. Have been using Obsidian since I started reviewing for the medical admission test. Since then, I have created and linked over a thousand notes and have exported countless Anki cards.
The galaxy view of all my notes is a wonderful representation of years of accumulated and linked knowledge.
I have enjoyed using Obsidian throughout the years. Thank you to the team for always improving Obsidian and to the plugin creators for enriching the experience. Thank you to this wonderful community.
Last year during a hackathon I made Anatomed, a tool that let's you render 3D anatomy in your browser. Naturally, since I also use obsidian a lot I converted it into a plugin.
You write a code block:
```anatomed
region: median nerve
detail: related
```
and get a rotatable 3D model inline, showing only what you asked for. The legend toggles each structure, and clicking a structure opens (or creates) a `[[Median nerve]]` note, so anatomy links into the rest of your vault.
- about 3,500 named structures, English or Latin names
- `detail: isolated / related / regional` controls how much surrounding anatomy you see
- talks to one host only (the model files), no analytics or telemetry
Install: Settings → Community plugins → Browse → "Anatomed 3D Anatomy". Desktop only for now.
Hey hey! Just hit 3K notes in my med school + journal + everything-else vault. Super glad I found this wonderful piece of software. Sharing my graph view (the colours are just for fun)!!!
I've been using Obsidian on and off for 2 years and consistently for around 8 months. I've just entered my 4th year of med school (which is so exciting!!). I know connecting concepts across such a vast curriculum is a humongous task, but it just makes so much sense academically, and as a way to reflect on my own understanding.
From AI-generated slop to atomic notes, the minimum information principle, frontmatter, "100 plugins", then 10 plugins, and a whole lot of other stuff. For those starting out, just write things down. The thing just grows.
Wishing you all the best on your wonderful journeys!
One thing I like about Obsidian is that you can keep it simple and still get a lot out of it.
It's tempting to install plugins for habit tracking, task management, calendars, statistics, and every other feature you might need. But after a while, managing the setup can become its own project.
I've come to appreciate plugins that solve one specific problem without adding a bunch of extra steps. A small feature that saves you time every day is often more useful than a complicated dashboard you spend hours customizing.
The best part is that everyone can build a different workflow while keeping their actual notes in plain Markdown files. You can change your setup whenever your needs change without having to rebuild your entire knowledge base.
Obsidian doesn't update themes on its own. A fix only reaches you if you open Settings → Appearance and click Check for updates. I make a theme (Tela) and shipped three releases in the last week, and it bugged me that they only reach people who remember to check.
So I made Theme Autoupdater. When Obsidian starts, it checks your installed community themes and installs the version Obsidian's own updater would.
Backup before every update - if anything goes wrong while writing, the old files go back
One-click rollback from the notice or the settings tab. The version you rolled back from is skipped until the next one comes out
Your edits are safe - if you've tweaked a theme's CSS, it won't be overwritten; you get told once instead
Themes only - they're just CSS, so an automatic update can't run code. Plugins are left alone
You can get early access versions if you have a Catalyst license, which helps support development of Obsidian.
Be aware that community plugin and theme developers receive early access versions at the same time as everyone else. Be patient with developers who need to make updates to support new features.
I run Obsidian on a Mac--whatever the latest version is, no doubt.
Wanting a split screen, I opened a note in a new window, which worked very well. But now I always have two windows open when I'm running Obsidian.
If I close the second window, both of my windows close. If I quit the application (I have to quit it twice for some reason), both windows are there when I reopen.
I've taken to just minimizing the second window when I don't need it, so this isn't a huge deal, but there has to be a way to run just the one window without reinstalling the program, right?
Is there a way yet to export your canvas into pdfs??? I keep searching every couple of months for a plugin here and there and didn't find a workaround.
Hey so I'm very new to obsidian and have run into a problem with the theme I'm using not having an option to change the accent colour (i might be unable to locate it, but I've looked multiple times.)
I'm using the theme underwater, and while the majority of it is great, a few things are stuck in this dusty pink. Such as my backlinks and graph view (when hovered over, and my settings are also pink.) i downloaded style settings so i could change it but can't find the option anywhere.
If someone could give me a solution I'd greatly appreciate it!
I think we've been reading too many feeds from AI text lately! I actually want to reduce my cognitive burden...
So I built TextFold, it turns any text into 5 zoomable layers—from a one-screen section map down to verbatim text. You pinch (or press 1–5) to zoom between them without losing your reading position, your agentic output, any papers, or documents.
Initially I just want to render my charts in chart.js syntaxes but as powerful as dataviewjs sometimes if i want something complex. So I chose Observable/plot which makes D3.js much easier to use and you can simply find a lot of written examples from their official website (like a chart note) to match your needs.
Then I found some plugins slowed my startup time to 2s. So I started cleaning up my plugins. So I put my inline comment into it. Then abc.js, then leaflet.js. All are in the images.
I haven't release it yet, since there are a few bugs to solve --- dragging the timeline or swiping over it will cause a little CPU spike, even though you won't feel it but we better get rid of it totally.
I post here because I need some testers, anyone wants to try it out? Leave a comment!
---
update: Thanks for all the upvotes and comments. I will DM you guys soon. For the test, actually as the only user I feel it's smooth enough. so I am just looking for real-world usage, use it or just click around and let me know if you hit any bugs or rendering issues. No formal testing needed, just your normal workflow.
So I am starting my uni capstone. I have been using obsidian for very basic use for the past few years. I know it works on Markdown but I never made the effort to learn much.
I find its graph feature & all quite interesting and was thinking about using it to document all my research and problem approach methods. I also JUST learnt about obsidian publish ....
Is it seriously that easy to publish your stuff ? Will anyone be able to access my site forever ? Is obsidian alright for this, will it remain free ? I will crash if it crashes in a year
TGIF, and I have a quick and proper intro to my plugin Home Cards for you.
I designed Home Cards for my own use, to be something that I enjoyed and that added meaningfully to my Obsidian experience. When you open Obsidian for the first time after installing Home Cards, this experience already greets you: a brand new Home tab that serves as a front door to your vault.
Your new home screen awaits you.
This home screen is immediately customizable. The base of the new experience is a canvas that you can choose to keep plain, or embellish with one of several pre-built light and dark mode patterns, or even customize with an image of your own.
Customization options for your background
Your home page looks great both in light as well as in dark mode.
Dark mode, rows layout.
You can customize how you wish to see your notes on your canvas. View them as cards or as a grid. The overall layout is a collection of sections. You can pick as many as you like, and in whichever order you like.
Pick your sections.
You can have multiple sections of the same overall type but with different parameters and customizations to suit the way you've built your vault.
Consider your options!
Within each section, Home Cards gives you tons of freedom and flexibility to further personalize what you see. It supports advanced filtering, so you can customize a section to see only cards from a specific folder, notes that have specific properties/ property values, or specific tags, or any combination of the above. Home Cards also offers some smart section types that you will immediately find useful. For example, you can create sections for your most or least popular notes (i.e. with the most and least links respectively) to help you rediscover your content. Or, you could add a 'Continue working' section that tracks the notes you typically open together, so you can get back into your work quicker.
If you use my other plugin, Relate, then Home Cards can list the results of a Relate search, a note's page in Home Cards gives each relationship a section of its own, and its Related to recent work section names the relationship behind each card.
Last but not the least, the header on your home page is a delightful little thing that automatically customize your greeting in different languages, or based on the time of day or other parameters.
An ever changing header.
There's a lot more to discover. Home Cards is Obsidian-native (clean code, no hacks) and works well/ looks great with other common plugins (for example, Home Cards looks especially great with my favorite plugin Notebook Navigator, shoutout to u/jsann).
I like TaskNotes' views (specially the calendar view, the kanban board and the pomodoro) but i hate having individual files for each and every task. after less than one semester using it i have dozens of files that will never see the light of day again, way too many properties and values for them and it's just a mess. i'm looking for something similar to TaskNotes but without having individual files for every task, maybe a master note where i can jot down tasks with due dates, priorities and status, or using daily notes and just type them there.
it's quite important to me to also have a google calendar integration, i don't use obsidian on my phone but i want to be able to see my google calendar widget and know what i have to do (this also exists on TaskNotes) without opening my computer.
does anything like this exist? i don't mind having different plugins as long as the workflow doesn't change that much. thanks!
A calendar hub for all your timed event needs within and beyond your vault.
v0.13.7 introduces the Calendar Cockpit sidebar, a private BYOK AI agent, CalDAV auto-discovery, daily note header previews, and major startup speedups.
Also, happy to announce that we have crossed 50k+ downloads in Obsidian Store; 100k+ in Github downloads.
Key Highlights
Calendar Cockpit: Collapsible left sidebar featuring a Mini Month view, 24h agenda + weather forecasts, and drag-and-drop task backlog timeblocking.
Private BYOK Calendar Agent (beta): Chat with your schedule using local (Ollama, LM Studio) or cloud models. Includes strict write-approval staging, web schedule scraping, and zero vault residue. Do check it out and start discussions on what you like / what you dislike about it. Currently it works, but has not been fleshed out.
CalDAV Auto-Discovery: Enter your server domain (Fastmail, Apple Reminders, Nextcloud) to automatically detect and import event and task collections.
Daily Note Links & Previews: Click date headers to jump to or create daily notes; hover with Ctrl/Cmd for native Obsidian Page Previews.
Performance & Sync Fixes: Fixed a 12s startup freeze in large vaults, added mobile edge swipe guards, and made Google Calendar updates non-destructive (preserves Meet links, attendees, and alarms).
In case you missed previous announcement we had: CalDAV VTODO tasks, Day Journals integration, workspace default calendars, and dashboard widgets.
To those who feel like overoptimization is ruining their lives:
You can overoptimize and overcustomize Obsidian all you want.
And it isn't the actual problem. Thus the overoptimization is the solution to a problem.
People always got a dopamine hit from overoptimization and customization of different tools. Polishing the swords, looking after horses, some people always fix and customize their cars.
Now it is actually a high serotonin activity that actually makes you happy.
(Yes this is a repost, I forgot to include the video T_T)
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 2K DOWNLOADS
You guys are AWESOME.
Thanks to everyone who reported bugs, made recommendations, and downloaded the plugin.
As a thanks, I've implemented a new type of map!
Introducing: PlanetViews
You can now create fully custom close ups of planets, and their moons and rings. You can add stars in the distance, play with the moons and their orbits, and add points of interest!
Additionally, you can also use PNGs inside your vault instead (or in addition¿questionMark?) to the solid planet!
I am finding that I want my partner to use Obsidian with me. I currently pay the $8/month plan because I use more than one vault. I’m trying to move her over from Apple notes and I am struggling to justify another $36/year to myself on top of knowing it will be a little bit complicated for her. I don’t even know that she would use it for more than the one shared vault I want.
I could see this as just adding a second user to the Plus subscription and only giving them access to shared vaults.
Or a new “Sync Plus One” that gives you the extra account, puts something like 8 vaults on the primary and 2 on the secondary.
Being able to do a family of 9 (yeah we are insane) would be great but I can see how that many free accounts using a shared vault would cut into business revenue.
