50 Obsidian tricks that need zero plugins

This blog already has a post about building a vault that lasts and two lists with a hundred plugins between them (one, two). This one goes the other way. Every trick below works in a fresh install, with zero community plugins. A lot of people never find them because they're tucked into a setting, a key combination or a core plugin that's switched off.

Everything was checked against Obsidian 1.15, the current version as I write this. Where a trick only exists in recent versions, I say which one. Keys are written for Windows and Linux; on a Mac, read Ctrl as Cmd and Alt as Option.

Search like you mean it #

1. Search has operators. The search pane (Ctrl+Shift+F) understands much more than words. A few that change how you use it:

file:recipe (notes with "recipe" in the file name)
path:"Projects/2026" (notes inside that folder)
tag:#todo (the tag, ignoring code blocks)
line:(server backup) (both words on the same line)
section:(server backup) (both words under the same heading)
task-todo:call (unfinished tasks that mention "call")
task-done:call (finished ones)
match-case:HappyCat (case-sensitive search)

You can combine them. A space means AND, OR means or, a minus sign excludes (-draft), quotes search an exact phrase and parentheses group things. And if a query gets too clever to read, turn on the "Explain search term" toggle in the search pane and Obsidian describes it in plain words.

2. Search by property. Square brackets search your properties. [status:Draft] finds notes with that status, [status:Draft OR Published] finds either, [duration:<5] compares numbers, and [aliases] alone finds any note that has the property at all.

3. Regular expressions work too. Put the pattern between slashes. path:/\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}/ finds every file with a date in its path.

4. Put a live search inside a note. A code block with query as its language runs a search and shows the results right there, always up to date:

tag:#read -tag:#done

It's a reading list that maintains itself. One caveat: Obsidian Publish doesn't render these.

Links and embeds you can aim #

5. Link to a heading, not just a note. [[Server notes#Backups]] jumps straight to that section. [[#Backups]] does the same inside the current note.

6. Link to a single paragraph. Put a space and an ID at the end of a paragraph, like ^why-restic, then link to it with [[Server notes#^why-restic]]. You don't even have to write the ID yourself: type [[Server notes#^ and Obsidian lists the paragraphs to pick from, and creates the ID for you.

7. Search the whole vault from inside a link. Type [[## and you're searching every heading in every note. Type [[^^ and you're searching every paragraph. It's the fastest way to link to a thought when you don't remember which note it lives in.

8. Embed only the part you need. Add ! before any of those links and the content shows up inline. ![[Server notes#Backups]] shows just that section, ![[Server notes#^why-restic]] shows just that paragraph. Edit the original and every embed follows.

9. Size your images. ![[photo.jpg|300]] makes an image 300 pixels wide and keeps its proportions. ![[photo.jpg|640x480]] sets both sides. Inside a table, the pipe needs a backslash before it, or the table breaks.

10. Open a PDF on the right page. ![[manual.pdf#page=12]] embeds the PDF already on page 12. Add a height with #page=12&height=400.

11. Change what a link says. [[Artificial intelligence|AI]] links to the note but shows "AI" in the text.

Properties that do more than you think #

12. Add a property from the keyboard. Ctrl+; adds a new property to the current note. Typing --- on the first line of a note starts the properties block too.

13. Give a note several names. The aliases property lists other names for a note. They show up in link suggestions with a little curved arrow, and picking one writes the link with the alias as display text. The Backlinks pane also catches unlinked mentions of the aliases, so a note called "Artificial intelligence" with the alias "AI" finds every loose "AI" in your vault.

14. Style a single note. The cssclasses property adds a CSS class to one note. Pair it with a CSS snippet and that note can look different from the rest. The example from the official docs puts a red border around the images of one note. In the note:

---
cssclasses:
- red-border
---

And in a file inside .obsidian/snippets:

.red-border img { border-color: #ff0000; border-style: solid; }

Then go to Settings, Appearance, CSS snippets, press the reload button and turn the snippet on.

Writing tricks #

15. Callouts that fold. A callout is a quote with a type: > [!tip], > [!warning], > [!question] and a dozen more. Write a title after the type to replace the default one. Add - right after the type and it starts folded, + and it starts open:

> [!faq]- Why is the backup so slow?
> Because it's checking every file the first time.

That's a FAQ that opens on click, in plain Markdown. Callouts also nest, with > > [!todo] inside another one, and in Live Preview you can right-click the title to switch its type.

16. Write things only you can see. Anything between %% and %% is a comment. It stays in the file but disappears in Reading view. It works inline or across several lines. Just remember to close it, because an open %% hides the rest of the note.

17. Highlights come in colors now. ==text== highlights as always. Since version 1.14, put a colored circle emoji right after the opening == and the highlight takes that color. Type == and Obsidian suggests the colors.

18. Footnotes, two ways. The classic way is [^1] in the text and [^1]: the note anywhere below. The lazy way is inline: ^[the note goes right here]. Inline footnotes only show up in Reading view, not in Live Preview, so check there.

19. Diagrams from text. A code block with mermaid as its language draws flowcharts, sequence diagrams, timelines and more. Since 1.15, diagrams follow your theme's colors and you can zoom and pan inside them.

Keys that save hours #

20. Many cursors at once. Alt+click adds another cursor. Shift+Alt+drag, or dragging with the middle mouse button, makes a rectangular selection, which is great for editing a column of text. Escape goes back to one cursor.

21. Small keys worth memorizing.

Ctrl+L: turn a line into a checkbox, and tick it
Ctrl+Shift+V: paste without formatting
Ctrl+Shift+K: delete the current line
Ctrl+C with nothing selected: copy the whole paragraph
Ctrl+E: switch between editing and reading

22. Paste a link over text. Select a word, paste a URL, and Obsidian turns it into a Markdown link with that word as the text.

23. Give a key to anything. Every command in Obsidian can get a hotkey in Settings, Hotkeys. Some useful commands come with no key at all. "Move line up" and "Move line down" are the best examples. Give them Alt+Up and Alt+Down and you'll wonder how you lived without them. "Fold more" and "Fold less" are good candidates too.

24. Move whole sections around. Open the Outline pane and drag a heading to another position. The whole section, text and subheadings, moves with it.

Getting around #

25. The quick switcher knows more than one trick. Ctrl+O opens it. Enter on a name that doesn't exist creates the note. Shift+Enter creates a note with exactly what you typed, even if other notes match. Ctrl+Enter opens the result in a new tab. And with the box empty, Down and then Enter takes you back to the note you were on before.

26. Pin your favorite commands. The command palette (Ctrl+P) is fuzzy, so "scf" finds "Save current file". In Settings, Command palette, you can pin commands so they always sit at the top.

27. Open links where you want them. Ctrl+click opens a link in a new tab. Ctrl+Alt+click opens it in a split. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+click opens it in a new window.

28. Tabs have tricks too. Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+8 jump to the first eight tabs, Ctrl+9 to the last. Ctrl+Shift+T reopens the tab you just closed. Right-click a tab to pin it. And in the tab group menu, "Stack notes" turns your tabs into sliding panels, nice for reading several notes side by side.

29. Save your layouts. The Workspaces core plugin saves which notes are open, how they're split and how the sidebars look. Make one for writing, one for research, one for the weekly review, and switch between them in a second.

30. Bookmark more than notes. The Bookmarks core plugin saves searches, headings and single paragraphs, not just files. A saved search that you open every Monday is a tiny dashboard.

31. Peek without opening. With Page preview on, hold Ctrl and hover a link in the editor to see the note in a popup.

Core plugins people forget #

32. Split and merge notes. Note composer has two moves. Select text and run "Extract current selection" to send it to a new note, leaving a link behind. Or merge a whole note into another one when you realize they're about the same thing.

33. Turn mentions into links. At the bottom of the Backlinks pane, "Unlinked mentions" lists every place that mentions the note by name without linking it. One click links each one. You can also show backlinks right at the end of the note with the "Toggle backlinks in document" command.

34. Meet an old note. Random note opens any note from your vault. It's an easy way to rediscover things you forgot you wrote.

35. Talk instead of type. Audio recorder records from your microphone and embeds the recording at the end of the current note. Good for ideas on the go.

36. Slash commands. Turn on the Slash commands core plugin and type / at the start of a line to run any command without leaving the keyboard.

37. Templates know dates. Inside a template, {{title}}, {{date}} and {{time}} fill themselves in, and the date takes any format, like {{date:dddd, D MMMM YYYY}}. The docs give one tip worth repeating: edit your templates in Source mode, because Live Preview can mess with the variables inside properties.

Bases, past the basics #

The vault post used Bases for two simple tables. They can do a lot more.

38. Formulas. A Base can have columns calculated from your properties. A few examples from the official docs:

file.mtime > now() - "1 week"
file.mtime.relative()
if(price, price.toFixed(2) + " dollars")

The first is true for notes changed in the last week, the second shows something like "3 days ago" and the third formats a price only when the note has one.

39. Summaries and groups. Right-click a column and pick "Summarize" to get a sum, an average, the earliest date, how many boxes are checked and more. Group the rows by any property, and fold the groups you don't need.

40. Backlinks as a table. In a Base embedded in a note, this means the note that holds the embed. A filter with file.hasLink(this.file) lists every note that links to the current one, with whatever columns you want. Make that Base once and embed it in your hub notes with ![[Backlinks.base]].

41. More than tables. Bases also show cards, lists and, since version 1.14, a kanban board. And the results menu exports any view to CSV.

Canvas and graph #

42. Turn a card into a note. In a Canvas, right-click a text card and choose "Convert to file". The card becomes a real note, with backlinks and everything. Alt+drag duplicates a card, Shift+1 zooms to fit everything and Shift+2 zooms to what you've selected.

43. Paint the graph. In the graph view settings, Groups lets you color nodes by any search. Color path:Projects in one color and tag:#person in another, and the graph starts to show you something. For a smaller picture, "Open local graph" shows only the neighbors of the current note, with a slider for how far to look.

Outside the app #

44. Links that open notes. Every note has an address that starts with obsidian://. Run "Copy Obsidian URL for current file" and paste it anywhere: a task manager, a calendar event, an email to yourself. Clicking it opens the note. The same scheme can create notes too, with obsidian://new, and search, with obsidian://search.

45. A command line, since 1.12. On desktop, turn on Settings, General, Command line interface. With Obsidian running, obsidian daily opens today's note from a terminal, and obsidian search query="meeting notes" searches the vault. Scripts and automations can talk to your vault without any plugin.

46. Clip the web. The Obsidian Web Clipper is the official browser extension, free and open source, for Chrome-based browsers, Firefox and Safari. It saves pages as clean Markdown, keeps your highlights and lets you make templates per site, with variables like {{title}}, {{url}} and {{highlights}}.

Safety nets and settings #

47. File recovery has your back. This core plugin quietly takes snapshots of your notes, by default every five minutes and kept for seven days. When you delete half a note by accident, go to Settings, File recovery, Snapshots, View, pick the note and restore an older version. The snapshots stay on the device and are not a real backup, so keep a proper one anyway.

48. Hide the noise. Settings, Files and links, Advanced, Excluded files. Anything you list there, like an archive of imports or a folder of attachments, disappears from search, the graph and unlinked mentions, and shows up less in the quick switcher and in link suggestions.

49. Different settings per device. If you sync your vault with something like Syncthing, every device shares the same .obsidian folder, plugins and all. Settings, Files and links, "Override config folder" lets one device use its own, with any name that starts with a dot, like .obsidian-phone. The new folder starts empty, so you set that device up once. After that, your laptop and your phone can have different themes, hotkeys and layouts in the same vault.

50. Make the phone yours. On mobile, Settings, Interface has two settings worth a visit. "Configure mobile toolbar" decides which buttons sit above the keyboard, and any command can be one of them. "Configure mobile Quick Action" sets what happens when you pull down on a note. By default it's the command palette, and it can be anything.

Start with three #

Nobody needs fifty tricks at once. Pick three that solve something you already do by hand, use them for a week, then come back for three more. My suggestion for a first round: the search operators, the query block and a hotkey for moving lines.