The Best Obsidian Plugins for 2026

The must-have Obsidian plugins for 2026 are Dataview and Dataview Serializer (querying your notes), Templater and QuickAdd (templating and capture), TaskNotes and Tasks (task management), Omnisearch (search), Excalidraw (visual thinking), and Notebook Navigator (navigation). Out of Obsidian's 2,700+ community plugins, these add the most value for personal knowledge management, and none of them are mandatory to get started. Below, I break down the 75+ plugins I actually use, grouped by what they help you do.

In this article, I'll list my favorite plugins for Obsidian. The best ones are included in my Obsidian Starter Kit:

Obsidian Starter Kit - Stop Configuring, Start Thinking | Knowledge Forge

Complete Obsidian vault with 40+ auto-filing templates, pre-configured plugins, and PKM methodology. 1,000+ users. 20+ years expertise. 30-day guarantee.

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Introduction 

Obsidian has a really large community and a huge library of community plugins (2700+ at the time I'm updating this).

Those plugins really add a lot of value to Obsidian and make for a much better user experience. Exploring those can be daunting. Let me spare you some time and introduce you to the very best plugins out there!

A word of warning though: you don't need plugins to get started. Those improve and empower existing workflows, but none are actually mandatory. If you're just getting started, keep things simple. You can add some plugins over time, but don't waste your time in the beginning, and instead focus on what matters: taking and making notes!

And when you get started, do focus on Obsidian Core Plugins

Ten Personal Knowledge Management Practices to Explore and Master

Ten practices that you should explore to improve your Personal Knowledge Management skills

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Knowledge Management for Beginners - Stop Drowning in Information | Transform How You Learn

10+ hour video course teaching Personal Knowledge Management. Build a second brain that helps you think better, learn faster, and actually use what you know. 200+ students. Lifetime access.

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Explore Obsidian 

Before you even think about plugins, do make sure you first learn about the core features of Obsidian.

Here's a free workshop I've recorded:

How do you find Obsidian plugins?

First of all, keep in mind that this list is opinionated. There are many many more plugins out there. So let me first tell you where you can find additional ones.

There are various ways to discover valuable Obsidian plugins. First of all, you can use the official community plugins list:

Plugins - Obsidian

With thousands of plugins and our open API, it’s easy to tailor Obsidian to fit your personal workflow.

Obsidian

Second, you can use the Obsidian Plugin Stats website to explore popular plugins, search by tags, etc:

Best Obsidian Plugins: New, Trending, Most Downloaded, Updated

Explore and find the best Obsidian plugins for your workflow to improve your productivity.

Obsidian Stats

If you're a geek like me, you can keep an eye on the official plugins list, which is defined in this JSON file: https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-releases/blob/master/community-plugins.json

And if you're a nerd like me, you can also ask AI to list all the recent plugins by simply pointing it to the link above.

You can even have more fun and analyze the raw plugin stats to discover popular/trending plugins: https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-releases/blob/master/community-plugin-stats.json

TL;DR 

Here are my favorite plugins:

And here are the best utility plugins I recommend:

And here's the full list of plugins covered in this article:

Built-in Obsidian plugins 

Obsidian comes out of the box with a set of "core" plugins that are disabled by default. You can enable/disable those through the options, under "Core plugins". Many of those are super useful.

Here are the core plugins I strongly recommend using:

Full list:

Journaling & Life Tracking 

Periodic notes

Using the periodic notes plugin, you can easily create periodic notes (i.e., daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly notes).

You can associate a specific template with each periodicity (e.g. a template for daily notes, another for weekly notes, etc). This plugin is also well integrated with the calendar plugin above. When you click on a date in the calendar, it creates the corresponding daily note.

With this plugin, journaling is much easier to do on a regular basis, and so are weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly periodic reviews

Details: Periodic notes plugin for Obsidian

Journal Bases

This is a plugin I've created to help navigate and manage your journal and periodic reviews with purpose-built Obsidian Base views.

This plugin adds two custom view types for daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly notes.

Periodic notes view:

Periodic Review view:

Overview:

Details: Journal Bases plugin for Obsidian

Life Tracker 

Capture and visualize the data that matters in your life. This Obsidian plugin adds a "Life Tracker" Obsidian Base type that transforms your tracked data into beautiful visualizations.

• 12 visualization types: Heatmap, Line, Bar, Area, Pie, Doughnut, Radar, Polar Area, Scatter, Bubble, Tag Cloud, Timeline
• GitHub-style heatmaps with 5 color schemes (green, blue, purple, orange, red)
• Animated charts with configurable duration and play/pause controls
• Interactive elements: click chart elements to open source notes, hover for detailed tooltips

It also includes support for efficient data capture:

Overview:

Details: Life Tracker plugin for Obsidian

Heatmap Calendar 

Generate GitHub like heatmaps based on Dataview queries.

Using this plugin, you can generate heatmaps just like the activity one on GitHub user profiles. This works by using a Dataview query to select pages to include, and constructing an array containing the data to render.

This is great to track your progress in various domains (e.g., exercise, meditation, eliminating bad habits, etc).

Details: Heatmap calendar plugin for Obsidian

Tomorrow's daily note

Easily open tomorrow's daily note.

Also less useful if you're using the Notebook Navigator plugin for Obsidian since it enables doing the same through its built-in calendar view.

Details: Tomorrow's daily note plugin for Obsidian

Task Management 

TaskNotes

Task and note management plugin built on the principle of "one note per task". It stores task information in note properties (i.e., YAML frontmatter), enabling compatibility with other plugins and external tools while maintaining full portability.

With this plugin, any task can be converted to a dedicated note, which can store details about the why, the what, the timing, the priority, etc.

TaskNotes includes the following capabilities:

• Task Properties: Each task can include a title, status, priority, due date, scheduled date, contexts, tags, time estimate, and recurrence pattern. You can also add custom fields.
• Time Tracking: A time tracking feature allows you to record the amount of time that you spend on tasks. This data is stored in the task's frontmatter as time entries with start and stop times.
• View Types: Eight different views are provided: Task List, Notes, Agenda, Kanban, Mini Calendar, Advanced Calendar, Pomodoro, and Pomodoro Stats.
• Editor Integration: Inline task widgets display task information within your notes. An instant conversion feature transforms checkbox tasks into TaskNotes. A natural language parser can interpret phrases to create structured tasks.
• Calendar Integration: The plugin can subscribe to external ICS calendars from Google Calendar, Outlook, and other calendar systems. Time-blocking features are also included.
• External Tool Compatibility: The YAML frontmatter format is compatible with other Obsidian plugins and can be processed by external tools.

In my approach, everything is a note, including goals, plans, projects, and thanks to this plugins, tasks as well!

Details: TaskNotes plugin for Obsidian

Kanban 

This plugin enables creating and managing tasks using markdown-backed Kanban Boards.

While the TaskNotes plugin for Obsidian also provides a Kanban view, I still like the simplicity that this plugin provides (just a list of Markdown cards). Actually, this simple Kanban Board may include links to TaskNote tasks, closing the gap between more advanced tasks with details/background and simple TODOs.

Details: Kanban plugin for Obsidian

Tasks 

The Obsidian Tasks plugin helps you track tasks across your Obsidian vault. It supports due dates, recurring tasks, querying, filtering, etc. This plugin, combined with the Kanban plugin for Obsidian and the TaskNotes plugin for Obsidian is a killer combo.

Details: Tasks plugin for Obsidian

Rollover daily todos

If your list of tasks for the day is part of your daily notes (which I highly recommend for clarity & focus), then this plugin is a must-have. It will automatically copy the incomplete tasks to the list of the next day. This makes it a breeze to continue where you left things off.

Details: Rollover daily todos plugin for Obsidian

Querying & Data 

Dataview 

Dataview is one of the most powerful Obsidian plugins out there. Using it, you can add queries to your notes to fetch information from anywhere in your knowledge base based on location, tags, property values, etc.

To give you an idea of how powerful it is, take a look at these examples, taken directly from the Obsidian Starter Kit.

Find quotes corresponding to a specific author:

LIST FROM #quotes and [[2020-04-20-2020-04-20-quickly-amend-a-git-commit]] SORT file.name ASC

Find recently modified notes:

$=dv.list(dv.pages('').sort(f=>f.file.mtime.ts,"desc").limit(5).file.link)

Find orphan notes:

TABLE file.ctime AS "updated"
FROM ""
WHERE length(file.inlinks) = 0 AND length(file.outlinks) = 0 AND length(file.tags) = 0 AND file.name != "Orphans"
SORT file.mtime desc

Find duplicate notes:

function listFileNameIssues(dv) {
  let pages = dv.pages();
  let groups = pages.groupBy(p => p.file.name.toLowerCase());

  for (let group of groups) {
    let count = 0
    for (let page of group.rows.sort(p => p.file.path, 'asc')) {
      count += 1;
    }
    
    if (count === 1 ) {
      continue;
    }
    
    for (let page of group.rows.sort(p => p.file.path, 'asc')) {
      dv.paragraph(page.file.link + ': ' + page.file.path);
    }
  }
}

listFileNameIssues(dv);

Pick random notes:

const limit = 10;
const notes = dv.pages().sort(() => Math.random()).slice (0, limit).map(note => note.file.link);
dv.list(notes);

Count the number of notes:

$=dv.pages().length()

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The coolest part is that Dataview automatically shows you the up-to-date query results.

Details: Dataview plugin for Obsidian

Dataview Serializer  

This is a plugin that I've created and that adds a major feature currently not supported by the Dataview plugin. It requires the Dataview plugin to function.

The feature added by this plugin is the capability of automatically serializing dataview queries to Markdown.

When you write a normal Dataview query, "all you get" is a live view showing the results of the query. The output is never saved, it's just refreshed every time you look at the note containing the query. If you open that note with another editor, all you can see if the query, not the results.

With this plugin, you not only see the query, but also the output. This is powerful because it means that the data IS there. If you publish the note (e.g., using Obsidian Publish, Quartz or GitHub Pages), then the data will also be there. As an added benefit, the data may also appear on your knowledge graph, which is mighty powerful.

If you like Dataview, then I highly recommend using this plugin. Not only because it will keep your data safe and usable from other tools, but also because it makes the query results available for AI to use!

Here's what queries look like when using this plugin:

Most Dataview queries are supported, including lists, tables, inline queries, and even DataviewJS!

<!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/quote WHERE public_note = false SORT file.name ASC -->
<!-- SerializedQuery: LIST FROM #type/quote WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC -->
- [[‘Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read]]
- [[20 years from now, the only people who will remember that you worked late are your kids]]
- ...

The first part with "QueryToSerialize" contains the query that needs to be executed. The second part, with "SerializedQuery", is added automatically by this plugin, and corresponds to the Markdown version of the query results.

Every time a note containing a serialized query is opened, the queries are evaluated again, and the serialized output gets updated. It's also possible to refresh the output of all Dataview Serializer queries.

I use this plugin extensively in the Obsidian Starter Kit, for instance for Maps of Content, Dashboard queries, and more!

Details: Dataview Serializer plugin for Obsidian

Datacore 

The Datacore plugin for Obsidian is the so-called successor of Dataview. It is being developed by the same maker (Michael Brenan).

Fundamentally, the goal is the same: index your notes, and create live-updating views. But Datacore focuses on creating a much better user experience and user interface.

Although this plugin is really powerful, I'm not convinced yet. I have enough "power" at my disposal with the Dataview plugin combined with Dataview Serializer. And as far as I know, this plugin suffers from the same issue as Dataview: live results, but nothing in the actual markdown files, meaning you can't leverage the data with AI.

Details: Datacore plugin for Obsidian

OmniSearch 

The Omnisearch plugin for Obsidian adds a powerful way to search and explore the notes in your vault. The authors describe it as "a search that just works".

Details: Omnisearch plugin for Obsidian

Sentinel  

Sentinel is a plugin that enables users to automatically update note properties or execute commands based on document visibility changes within Obsidian.

Details: Sentinel plugin for Obsidian

Templating & Automation 

Templater 

The Templater plugin for Obsidian is a powerful templating engine. It provides many functions to help you create really cool templates.

The benefit is that you can design clearly defined note types, then templates for each of those making it it much easier to be systematic in the way you take notes.

Here's an example taken from the Obsidian Starter Kit which uses the Templater plugin extensively:

---
tags:
- weekly_notes
---
    
# Meeting

## Participants
...

## Agenda
...

## Minutes
...

## Actions
...

Once you have created a template, you can easily add it to any note using the ALT/Cmd + E shortcut.

Details: Templater plugin for Obsidian

QuickAdd 

This plugin makes it a breeze to quickly add new notes to your Obsidian vault.

In includes:

• Templates: ways to create new notes (composes well with templating plugins such as Templater plugin for Obsidian)
• Capture: quickly add content to predefined files (e.g., add a link to the current note under a specific section of your daily note)
• Macros: compound templates and captures together into chained workflows (e.g., quickly creating a new note, applying a template to it, adding it to your daily note)
• Multi-choices: organizational (folders of other choices)
• ...

Details: QuickAdd plugin for Obsidian

Auto Note Mover 

The Auto Note Mover is a simple but powerful plugin. It provides a way to automatically move notes around within your knowledge base. This is great as it removes the need to manually file notes.

TIP: It's also possible to automatically file notes using the Templater plugin for Obsidian using await tp.file.move(...).

Details: Auto Note Mover plugin for Obsidian

Expander  

This is a plugin I've built to replace variables across your Obsidian vault using HTML comment markers.

You simply configure key-value pairs in settings, and this plugin will automatically substitute them throughout your notes, and keep those updated too.

Details: Expander plugin for Obsidian

Navigation & Productivity 

Notebook Navigator

A modern file explorer plugin for Obsidian that is a great alternative to the default File explorer core plugin for Obsidian.

It provides a powerful dual-pane interface, and enables advanced navigation through folders, tags, pinned notes, search, a calendar view, and a ton more. All with extensive customization and performance optimization.

Details: Notebook Navigator plugin for Obsidian

Quick Switcher Plus Plus 

This plugin extends the built-in Quick file switcher (CTRL/CMD + O) and lets you:

• Find files by headings instead of file names
• Navigate to symbols (headings, hashtags, links, etc)
• Navigate between open editors and side panels
• Switch between workspaces
• Search bookmarks
• Run commands
• …

Details: Quick Switcher plus plus plugin for Obsidian

Doubleshift 

Obsidian Plugin to open the command palette by pressing shift twice. Software developers will love this one!

Details: Doubleshift plugin for Obsidian

Reveal Active File 

A simple plugin that adds a button to the file navigator that can be used to quickly locate the currently active file in the folder hierarchy.

Less useful since Obsidian 1.8.2 was released, because it includes an "Auto-reveal current file" setting. That setting is a toggle. Once enabled, it always reveals the active file. If you prefer to manually reveal the active file by clicking a button, it's not solving that. But since that version, it's also possible to invoke the "Files: Reveal current file in navigation" command to do the same.

Details: Reveal Active File Button plugin for Obsidian

Homepage 

The homepage plugin does exactly what it says: it lets you create a homepage for your knowledge base.

The homepage is just a note like any other, meaning that you can add whatever you want to it: text, titles, images, tasks, Dataview queries, etc.

Details: Homepage plugin for Obsidian

Focus Mode 

Adds a Ribbon icon and commands to toggle a focus mode that removes visual “noise”, helping you focus on writing.

Details: Focus Mode plugin for Obsidian

Recent files 

Display a list of most recently opened files.

Details: Recent files plugin for Obsidian

Pane Relief 

This plugin helps managing panes and tabs in Obsidian (especially using the keyboard).

It adds a persistent per-tab navigation history, new commands, and more.

Details: Pane relief plugin for Obsidian

Smart random note 

This plugin adds a way to open a random note based on the list of search results. This is a great addition to explore your knowledge base randomly (always useful to re-discover old/forgotten notes)

Details: Smart random note plugin for Obsidian

Review  

Helps to review notes over time.

Details: Review plugin for Obsidian

Visualization 

Excalidraw 

This plugin integrates Excalidraw into Obsidian. It's a powerful alternative to the built-in Canvas feature of Obsidian. It saves sketches/visualiations in a text-based, open file format, supported by various tools.

Details: Excalidraw plugin for Obsidian

MindMap 

An Obsidian plugin for displaying markdown notes as mind maps using Markmap.

Details: Mindmap plugin for Obsidian

Maps 

Map is a type of view you can use in Obsidian Bases. This plugin was created by the Obsidian team and is available as an official community plugin.

Here's an example of what I did with this one: How to capture GPS coordinates, import and display those in Obsidian

Details: Maps plugin for Obsidian

Search in Canvas 

Enables searching within the Canvas view.

Details: Search in canvas plugin for Obsidian

Text Editing & Writing 

Various complements

This plugin boosts productivity by automatically completing what you type, proposing to add links when some text matches the title of a note, etc.

Details: Various complements plugin for Obsidian

Outliner  

Allows you to work with your lists exactly like in Workflowy, RoamResearch, LogSeq, ...

Details: Outliner plugin for Obsidian

Zoom 

This plugin lets you "zoom" into headings and lists. This makes it much easier to focus on specific parts of long notes.

Details: Zoom plugin for Obsidian

Text Transporter 

The Text Transporter plugin is a Swiss Army Knife of text manipulation for Obsidian. Clearly a must-have to apply transformations to your notes.

Details: Text transporter plugin for Obsidian

Notes refactor 

This plugin lets you copy/extract text selections from a note into other ones. It adds to the features offered by the text transporter plugin.

Details: Notes refactor plugin for Obsidian

Text Snippets 

This plugins allows defining text templates and replacing those automatically in your notes for faster typing. Create your own snippets almost like in many text editors and IDEs.

Note that I personally prefer using external text expanders such as Espanso, since those work in all programs; not only Obsidian.

Details: Text Snippets plugin for Obsidian

Natural language dates 

This plugin allows you to use natural language dates more easily.

Details: Natural language dates plugin for Obsidian

Multi Tag 

Tag all notes in a folder (and sub-folders) at once.

Details: Multi Tag plugin for Obsidian

Paste URL into Selection 

This plugin makes it a breeze to add a link to text.

Without this plugin, to do that, you have to:

• Select the text
• Hit CTRL/CMD + K
• Paste the link

With this plugin, you just have to select the text and paste the link.

Details: Paste URL into selection plugin for Obsidian

ProgressBar 

This plugin makes it easy to add progress bars to your notes. I have added examples in daily, monthly, quarterly, and home notes.

Here’s how it looks:

Details: ProgressBar plugin for Obsidian

Table editor 

An editor for Markdown tables. It can open CSV data and data from Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers and LibreOffice Calc as Markdown tables from Obsidian Markdown editor.

Details: Table Editor plugin for Obsidian

Editing Toolbar 

This plugin adds a visual toolbar you can use to modify text styles in your notes. If you're not used to Markdown yet, then this can prove very useful.

Demo: https://github.com/PKM-er/obsidian-editing-toolbar/raw/master/editing-toolbar-demo.gif

Details: Editing toolbar plugin for Obsidian

Dictionary 

A dictionary within Obsidian. Useful to quickly find word definitions.

Details: Dictionary plugin for Obsidian

Content Capture & Media 

Paste image renamer

The Paste image renamer plugin makes it a breeze to rename images and attachments when you add those to your Obsidian vault. This is a must-have.

Details: Paste image renamer plugin for Obsidian

Image Context Menus 

Add useful context menus for images, URLs and PDFs.

This plugins add context menu entries to images:

• Copy
• Open in default app
• Show in system explorer
• Reveal in navigation
• ...

Details: Image Context Menus plugin for Obsidian

Simple Embeds

This plugin automatically turns links into embeds within Obsidian.

Makes it a breeze to embed YouTube videos and Tweets in your notes.

Details: Simple embeds plugin for Obsidian

Extract URL 

This plugin makes it really easy to capture external content into Obsidian. It extracts Markdown compatible with Obsidian out of URLs. Thanks to this plugin, you can paste the URL of a Website in an Obsidian note, invoke a command and have the URL be replaced by the content converted into Markdown.

Details: Extract URL plugin for Obsidian

Image in editor 

Enables you to view Images, Transclusions, iFrames and PDF Files within the Editor without a necessity to switch to the Preview mode.

Details: Image in editor plugin for Obsidian

Text Extractor 

This plugin is useful to quickly extract text from images (e.g., png, jpg) and PDF documents.
Note that it doesn't work on mobile...

Details: Text extractor plugin for Obsidian

Book Search 

This plugin makes it a breeze to download book metadata from the Web. It generates notes for books you import, using a pre-configured template

This plugin uses the Google Books API to download book metadata and cover. Once fetched, it automatically creates a note for the book. This plugin is compatible with the Templater plugin for Obsidian.

Details: Book search plugin for Obsidian

Note Quality & Maintenance 

Linter

This Obsidian plugin formats and styles notes automatically, based on the rules you configure. This helps a lot to maintain a consistent knowledge base.

Details: Linter plugin for Obsidian

Metadata Menu 

The Metadata Menu plugin is a powerful metadata management tool designed for "data quality enthusiasts" who want structured, consistent property handling across their vault.

Details: Metadata Menu plugin for Obsidian

Clear Unused Images 

This plugin makes it easy to cleanup old and unused images from your vault. It's great for maintenance.

Using the Ribbon icon or associated commands, you can remove images that aren’t used in any of your notes.

Details: Clear unused images plugin for Obsidian

Update Time 

This plugin updates note properties to include creation and last update times.
It automatically modifies the update time when notes are modified. And it can be configured to ignore certain folders.

This plugin is useful to track creation and last update time on your notes. It automatically adds or updates the “created” and “updated” metadata properties on your notes.

I personally use it so that I can add those timestamps to my public notes.

Details: Update time plugin for Obsidian

Broken Links 

This plugin identifies internal links in your vault that don't connect to any existing files, including broken links to headings and blocks. It provides three view options: Folder View (organizes broken links by folder structure with counts), File View (lists files with broken links, sortable alphabetically or by quantity), and Link View (groups broken links by name showing which files contain them).

When you discover a broken link in the interface, clicking it opens the containing note so you can either edit the link or create the missing note using built-in Obsidian commands. This helps maintain vault hygiene by identifying orphaned references and making it easy to fix them. The plugin is useful for large vaults where broken links can accumulate over time as notes are renamed, moved, or deleted.

Details: Broken Links plugin for Obsidian

Find unlinked files 

This plugin enables you to quickly identify orphaned notes (i.e., notes with no backlinks) and notes with broken links.

Details: Find unlinked files plugin for Obsidian

List Modified 

Automatically add a list of all modified notes within your daily notes. Makes it a breeze to find what you recently modified.

Note that I personally prefer using Dataview plugin for Obsidian and Dataview Serializer plugin for Obsidian for this purpose.

Details: List Modified plugin for Obsidian

Remember Cursor Position 

Automatically preserves your cursor location, scroll position, and text selection across all notes. When you navigate between notes or follow links, you return to exactly where you left off. The positions are stored in a file (with a configurable path), so everything is restored even after closing and reopening Obsidian.

Details: Remember Cursor Position plugin for Obsidian

User Interface & Customization 

Folder Note

This plugin enables creating “Folder notes”. To do so, right click on a folder, and select “Folder Note Commands > Create markdown folder note”. Once done, a new note will be created in the folder, with the same name as the folder. From now on, whenever you click on that folder in the File Explorer, you will see that note.

I personally use this with my public notes, in order to describe the folders.

Details: Folder note plugin for Obsidian

Hider

This plugin lets you hide different parts of the user interface of Obsidian.

You can hide the following elements using the settings of this plugin:

Details: Hider plugin for Obsidian

TIP: Did you know that Obsidian has a fullscreen mode?

Fold Properties By Default 

This plugin always folds note properties by default. This is useful when your notes include a lot of metadata and/or tags.

Details: Fold Properties By Default plugin for Obsidian

Quiet Outline 

This plugin adds a side panel which displays a full outline of the current note. The depth of the outline can be changed on the fly.

Details: Quiet Outline plugin for Obsidian

Insta Toc 

Generate, update, and maintain a table of contents for your notes while typing in real time.

Details: Insta Toc plugin for Obsidian

Settings Search 

This plugin adds a search box in the top-left corner of the Settings view. Using it, you can quickly find the settings you’re looking for:

Details: Settings search plugin for Obsidian

Banners 

Displays image banners on your notes.

Details: Banners plugin for Obsidian

Graph Banner 

This plugin displays the local graph right on top of your notes (when in reading or editing mode).

Here's what it looks like:

Details: Graph banner plugin for Obsidian

Iconize 

Using this plugin, you can add icons to various elements in Obsidian: folders, tabs, files, titles, etc.

Details: Iconize plugin for Obsidian

Related plugins:

• Emoji toolbar plugin for Obsidian
• Emotion picker plugin for Obsidian
• Icon shortcodes plugin for Obsidian

Backup & Versioning 

Local Backup

The Local backup plugin for Obsidian enables automating the creation of local backups of your Obsidian vaults.

Details: Local Backup plugin for Obsidian

Obsidian Git 

Backup your Obsidian.md vault with git. A bit technical but really valuable!

Really wonderful when combined with the Local backup plugin for Obsidian, the File recovery core plugin for Obsidian and the Time Machine plugin for Obsidian.

Details: Git plugin for Obsidian

Time Machine

A plugin that makes it a breeze to see (and revert) the changes made between the current version of a note and past versions saved either by the Obsidian File Recovery system or by Git (if your vault is also a Git repository).

It provides a dedicated "Time Machine" view where you can navigate between snapshots of the currently active note, see the differences with the current version, restore previous versions, and also restore specific parts of previous versions.

Demo:

Article:

Never Lose a Note Again — Time Machine Plugin for Obsidian

Obsidian has a built-in File Recovery plugin, but it’s pretty basic. I built the Time Machine plugin to fix that. Here’s what it does and why you’ll want it.

Sébastien DuboisSebastien Dubois

Details: Time Machine plugin for Obsidian

Integration & Development 

Pandoc

The Pandoc plugin for Obsidian integrates Pandoc with Obsidian. It makes it a breeze to export notes to different markup and file formats.

Details: Pandoc plugin for Obsidian

External Links 

This plugin helps users track and manage external links (URLs) within their notes. It displays all external links found on a given note in an organized view, making it easy to see what web resources are referenced. The plugin also provides backlink tracking, showing what other notes link to a given external URL.

Details: External Links plugin for Obsidian

Terminal 

This plugin integrates shells, consoles, and terminal emulators directly within Obsidian, enabling users to run command-line interfaces without leaving their note-taking application. It supports both external terminal windows and embedded terminals inside Obsidian, with a built-in developer console accessible across all platforms. The plugin works with popular shells like Bash, PowerShell, and Zsh (Z Shell), as well as terminal emulators including Windows Terminal, iTerm2, and GNOME Terminal.

Details: Terminal plugin for Obsidian

AdvancedURI 

The AdvancedURI plugin for Obsidian exposes many features of Obsidian through URIs available locally. This enables interacting with Obsidian from other applications (e.g., scripts) to create notes, move them, invoke commands, apply templates, etc.

Most of what this plugin enables is also supported out of the box by the Obsidian CLI (and then some!).

Details: AdvancedURI plugin for Obsidian

BRAT 

The Beta Reviewers Auto-update Tester (BRAT) plugin for Obsidian is used by plugin developers who need beta testers for their plugins. It's a great way to test and explore upcoming plugins.

Be careful though. Beta plugins are not perfect. They get updated regularly, and break quite often.

Details: BRAT plugin for Obsidian

And more... There is an Obsdian plugin for each use case 

There are many other really interesting plugins for Obsidian. Here are some you might want to check out as well:

Bonuses 

The Obsidian Web Clipper 

A last "plugin" I want to mention is the official Obsidian Web Clipper. This one is actually a browser extension, but you don't want to miss it. It makes it a breeze to curate/capture content from anywhere on the Web and to send it all to your Obsidian vault.

The Obsidian Web Clipper not only captures and converts content to Markdown, but also extract useful metadata (e.g., page title, tags, og meta, and more!).

Details: Obsidian Web Clipper

Obsidian CLI 

While not technically a plugin, the Obsidian CLI is really worth mentioning. It was released in early 2026 for the insiders, with general availability coming a bit later.

The Obsidian CLI is interesting because it makes it a breeze to:

• Integrate Obsidian with AI
• Control Obsidian from the command-line
• Develop Obsidian plugins (especially when combined with AI)
• ...

Conclusion 

In this article, I've listed some of the best Obsidian plugins I know of, and then some. The Obsidian developer community is large and very productive.

The plugin ecosystem of Obsidian adds a ton of value and really deserves your time and attention.

Check those plugins out and tell me which ones you love most. I'm also curious about which plugins you think I should add to this list!

That's it for today! ✨

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best Obsidian plugins?

For most people, the highest-value community plugins are Dataview and Dataview Serializer (query your notes like a database and save the results as Markdown), Templater and QuickAdd (templating and fast capture), TaskNotes and Tasks (task management), Omnisearch (full-text search), Excalidraw (drawing and diagrams), and Notebook Navigator (a better file explorer). Start with a handful that solve a problem you actually have, then add more over time.

Do you need plugins to use Obsidian?

No. Obsidian works well out of the box, and its built-in core plugins (Search, Backlinks, Graph view, Daily notes, Bases, and more) cover the essentials. Community plugins improve and extend existing workflows, but none are mandatory. If you're just getting started, focus on taking and making notes first, then add plugins over time as specific needs come up.

How many Obsidian plugins should I install?

As few as possible to start, then only what you need. Installing too many plugins at once adds complexity, slows Obsidian down, and increases maintenance. A common mistake is spending more time configuring plugins than actually using the app. Add one plugin, use it for a while, and keep it only if it earns its place.

What are the best Obsidian plugins for beginners?

Beginners get the most value from Templater (consistent note templates), QuickAdd (fast capture), Dataview (surface notes automatically), and a backup plugin like Local Backup or Obsidian Git. Enable the built-in core plugins first, then add these one at a time.

Are Obsidian community plugins safe?

Community plugins are open source and reviewed before being added to the official directory, but they run with access to your vault, so treat them like any third-party software. Install from the official community list, favor popular and actively maintained plugins, keep them updated, and remove any you no longer use. You can check a plugin's popularity and update history on the Obsidian Plugin Stats site.

Feel Overwhelmed?

Don't. As I said at the beginning, you don't actually need all of this. But if you see the value in at least some of those, then take a look at my Obsidian Starter Kit. It comes with batteries included. Carefully curated plugins that come pre-configured into a cohesive whole:

Obsidian Starter Kit - Stop Configuring, Start Thinking | Knowledge Forge

Complete Obsidian vault with 40+ auto-filing templates, pre-configured plugins, and PKM methodology. 1,000+ users. 20+ years expertise. 30-day guarantee.

Knowledge ForgeKnowledge Forge

Omnisearch and friends help you find notes, but they can only work with what's in them. If you want the full system (note design, built-in search, the best search plugins and AI search), I wrote The Obsidian Search Handbook.

The Obsidian Search Handbook | Find Any Note When You Need It (2026 edition)

A 254-page ebook on finding your notes in Obsidian: note design, vault structure, search operators, Bases, the terminal and AI search. Book or Complete edition.

Sébastien DuboisSébastien Dubois

Free cheat sheet. Just want a quick reference for finding notes? The Obsidian Search Cheat Sheet has the search operators and the search escalation ladder (which tool to try first, depending on what you remember) on 13 pages. Enter your email and I'll send it right away.

Free Obsidian Search Cheat Sheet: operators and the search escalation ladder

A free 13-page PDF with the Obsidian search operators worth remembering and the search escalation ladder: which tool to try first, depending on what you remember about the note.

Sébastien DuboisSébastien Dubois

Related 

• Obsidian Starter Kit
• Obsidian
• Obsidian Community Plugins
• Obsidian Core Plugins
• Obsidian AI Plugins

The Complete Guide to Templates and Templater in Obsidian

Templates are how every Obsidian note is created with the right properties and structure already in place. The complete guide to templates and Templater: core vs community plugin, the interpolation vs execution model, choices, dynamic dates, auto-filing, JavaScript, and where AI fits in.

Sébastien DuboisSebastien Dubois

About Sébastien

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