Below you find a short list of plugins I find particularly useful.
You can either follow the links to the plugin documentation, or browse, install, and explore them directly in Obsidian.
Stay focused on note-taking, not setup
Plugins can enhance your workflow, but they’re optional. If you enjoy customizing and experimenting with new tools, feel free to explore the recommendations below. If you prefer to keep things simple, you can skip them entirely and still have a fully functional note-taking system.
List of plugin recommendations
Color coding
Plugins are highlighted depending on which session they’re suitable for:
🟢 Session 1 🟡 Session 2 🟣 Session 3
Appearance
Below, you find some plugins to customize the appearance of your Obsidian vault
- 🟢 Minimal theme settings: Use this plugin together with the theme “Minimal”. The plugin lets you choose different themes and customizations.
- 🟢 File color: A small plugin that lets you color the file names of specific files and folders → Good to quickly find your most important notes
- 🟢 Iconic: Add icons to filenames or buttons in Obsidian to customize the appearance
Writing notes
- 🟢 Emoji Shortcodes: Use emoji shortcodes like
:partying_face:to insert 🥳 - 🟢 Paste image rename: Renames your attachments (e.g., screenshots) following the file name into which you paste. This avoids all your attachments being named “Pasted image 202601152201”. I recommend turning on the setting “Auto rename” so you don’t have to do anything to rename the images.
- 🟡 Templater: A super powerful plugin for templates as an alternative to the simple templates included in core Obsidian. You can find examples on how to use it in the demo vault.
Drawings
- 🟢 Excalidraw: A super-powerful and famous plugin that lets you create drawings directly in Obsidian and embed them in your notes. Very useful for diagrams and sketches.
Planning & Organization
- 🟡 Periodic notes: A useful plugin if you want to automatically create periodic notes. In comparison to the core Obsidian plugin, it supports not only daily notes but also weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly notes.
- 🟡 Calendar: A simple calendar widget we also used for our daily notes workflow
Research & References
- 🟣 Zotero integration: Create literature notes automatically from your Zotero library including all annotations.
- 🟣 Obsidian webclipper: Not a plugin for Obsidian but for your browser. Lets you highlight and capture website content into an Obsidian note with just one click.
Import notes
- 🟢 Importer: Import notes from other note-taking apps like Apple Notes, Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, etc.
Vault synchronization
- 🟢 Remotely Save: A plugin that helps you synchronize your vault across devices. Please use carefully and always back up your vault before you use it. A frictionless (paid) alternative is the official Obsidian sync service. If you just connect two computers and not mobile devices, you can also just put your vault into a cloud storage like Google Drive.