Knowledge Workers, Note-Taking Friction
Users are struggling to effectively manage and organize their notes across multiple platforms and devices. They desire a seamless, fast, and flexible note-taking workflow that integrates diverse tools and caters to different capture and organization needs, often feeling frustrated by the limitations of current solutions.
SOURCES (60)
“Apple Notes actually does linking. Type >> followed by the title of the note you want to link to. It also supports tagging.”
“Was it that the FEATURE didn’t work or just that the HOTKEY didn’t work? As a long-time Karabiner Elements user sometimes hotkeys just screw up and don’t work, key combos in shortcuts disappear etc. I just use the Edit menu option (in the menu bar) to undo in those cases. Curious as to why an undo function didn’t actually work for you.”
“What platform do you write on, and if you keep a backup elsewhere, where? I write on Google Docs and I have a copy saved to a flash drive that I try to update semi-often, but now that I’m sitting at ~84k words I’m getting rather paranoid. submitted by /u/Emriii [link] [comments]”
“Dude. They’re not even comparable. I couldn’t imagine using Apple notes for long term notes. But then again I use obsidian for mostly novel drafting so there’s no way I’m doing that in Apple notes. I use Apple notes for quick jot this down notes. For long term notes obsidian is way better for me. Markdown is great. Easy to work across devices. Fully customizable. Vim key bindings”
“I have used Apple Notes and Obsidian for years now. I did try to go all-in with Apple Notes about a year ago and there were a couple of reasons that didn’t work out. First was no true backlinks. I use backlinks constantly and not having them was a big problem for me. Second was that Apple Notes became pretty glitchy once I was over about 3k notes. It crashed a lot. Finally, version control. I use obsidian sync and it has excellent version control that I can’t live without. So I have a hybrid sys”
“Before you dive too deep, you might want to take a look at Obsidian. It is free and supports extensions, so anything novel you could add could easily be made as an extension to a free app. You might be better off just making an obsidian extension and seeking donations or something.”
“For the display-name issue: `[[City Guards|Emeric]]` links to the City Guards note but shows "Emeric" as the text — the names don't need to match. Aliases (in the note's YAML frontmatter) solve the reverse case, where you want a note discoverable under multiple names. For folder sorting: Obsidian's built-in view really is limited to alphabetical/date/starred — for custom manual ordering, a community plugin like "Custom File Explorer sorting" or just numbering file”
“fyi. I never said I won't accept inconvinence. i want my data to stay with me. there is no need for my notes to reach obsidian's server. take a look here link to comment”
“Need very reliable sync. Can't afford a single inconvenience. Have you heard of obsidian sync?”
“Actually, that makes sense to me. The reason I introduced Obsidian is having all my notes in Markdown. I had a great system using OneNote and then could not transfer the notes from a very old version on Windows to the latest version on a Mac. It was incompatible with itself. That is when I decided that my long term notes must never again be held hostage by Microsoft. Apple, unfortunately, also integrates with its own database formats and should I decide to ditch Apple, I would have a huge proble”
Some images not showing in Obsidian Mac app
“I don't see the need for an editing toolbar in desktop Obsidian. If I need to apply any formatting to text, I just select the text, right click and use the options on the context menu.”
“iPad, iPhone, Windows, Linux Container and TrueNAS atm The Ultimate Self-Hosted Obsidian Sync Setup (PC & iOS) I'm using Mobius Sync Pro on IOS but you can also use Synctrain”
“Hey! No problem at all, I'm so happy that anyone has the same use case for it as I do. Page numbers is absolutely doable, I will probably be able to get that done this weekend. I'll add a comment here when the update is pushed :)”
“Hi, I formatted my MacBook and lost my clipper settings. Currently the default export of any X post has broken formatting. Indentation and bullets and even the exported content includes side panel. Anyway to properly format the export, with proper line breaks and make sure the whole thread gets saved? I have old exported threads, but ChatGPT is also not able to generate the template properly submitted by /u/palashmittal [link] [comments]”
Can I integrate it in Hearth like this - https://imgur.com/a/vVGpn0s ?
“Huh, I've never had that. It's not realtime like a google doc, but I see changes within like three seconds usually. Mostly text and small images in my notes.”
“Recently installed FastNoteSync: https://github.com/haierkeys/obsidian-fast-note-sync . So far I like it more then any alternative I tried.”
“Three months ago I asked how people take timestamped video notes without the pause, check the clock, switch to Obsidian, type, switch back loop. link the old thread People suggested Media Extended, Web Clipper templates, transcript tools, and watch-first-process-later. Good options, but they all either live inside Obsidian while you watch or give you the transcript instead of your own thinking. What I wanted was capture in the browser, right next to the video, with my own words on the exact mome”
“Pretty slick! When do you plan to officially release it and what kind of pricing model are you aiming for?”
“Really all I want is to just copy a whole week or a month in a single go. Is that possible? I don't want to spend time on opening and copying every single daily note submitted by /u/NoContext9453 [link] [comments]”
“I took a break from Obsidian due to broken hardware and was hoping this issue is resolved now. It isn't though. Obsidian at random resets my note to a random time. Despite my setting to do regular snapshots and even using the manual save, the edits are gone. Part of my past editing history is also gone. I don't know what causes it, but I would consider it a fatal bug, so unless I backup on edit, I am vulnerable to data loss? I am right now on the flatpak on Linux, but it started when I w”
“It's very cool looking, but it's also the Obsidian equivalent of folks who spend a lot of time decorating their bullet journals or whatnot. That's a whole 'nother hobby in itself, so if you're just in it for the notes, you're doing great.”
“I'm trying to decide between Obsidian and Joplin. I'm not really a power user. I just want a simple notes app that's easy to manage for several decades. Tbh, I don't even use most of the Markdown features. I mostly use it like a plain hand-typed txt file with images in between. I won't even link them between other notes to be exact.. I use linux rn. I wanna remember some commands I actually run.. I do some tinkering and after a month I actually forget what I did in a month or”
“Yes, that is exactly the setup I have. Works great! I can capture and retrieve from my phone and do more advanced tasks from the laptop. Notes Sync and backup automatically. Never have to worry about losing my notes as long as I have at least one of the synced devices. One thing I recommend is set up a single Sync folder with a local copy in each device, and then set each device to see each other device to lean in to the peer-to-peer capability rather than reduce the points of failure by going t”
If you're on Apple, it does the OCR automatically for you.
“Hi all! I've just installed Obsidian on my home server, and I'm accessing it through Firefox. I am trying to copy some text from a .txt file on my computer into a note, and nothing his happening. Cmd-V and Cmd-Shift-V do nothing. Right-clicking on the note shows that the Paste and Past as Plain Text options are completely greyed out. It's like Obsidian isn't able to see my system clipboard, even though I'm able to paste this same text into Google Docs and VS-Code without prob”
“What can I put on the configuration Web Clipper to improve the Titles of my notes and the TAGS ? for some reason the Tags are always "Clippings" and the titles are always horrible TIA submitted by /u/AgentPadrino [link] [comments]”
“hey, i'm trying out obsidian for the first time and it's great! but i'm coming across an issue that i cant wrap my head around when i edit this note in the canvas view the note's tabs display differently than when i don't have the note selected for editing is this a buge? https://preview.redd.it/llh1dd9ybnch1.png?width=651&format=png&auto=webp&s=5d2edd13b6a0e52d8580eeae3190d5d6edb19aa7 submitted by /u/Dangerous-Emu9817 [link] [comments]”
“Apologize if this doesn't fit the sub, I don't see a correct flare. I use Obsidian on my phone and while I'm okay with it there, I'm not wanting to install an Electron app (Chrome tab for a webpage that could just be loaded on a browser) if possible for a .md viewer. Which means, unfortunately, that I can not use Obsidian right now because I can not load it into Firefox (my preferred browser) due to needing to install Chrome (Electron) for it. So I'm wondering if Obsidian has”
“So 5.5 can't create documents on canvas, everything is supposed to happen in chat now. Highly frustrating for me as I keep my notes on the canvas for quick access. Is there any alternative, or am I going to lose my best project UI for good? submitted by /u/Elfiemyrtle [link] [comments]”
“I just got a Boox Go 10.3 Lumi and have successfully installed Obsidian and implemented Obsidian sync on it. Is there any way to increase the UI text size in Obsidian? I can increase editing and reading size, but sidebars, menus, etc. are all pretty small, even on this 10 inch device. Also, any suggestions for color themes? When I synced I brought over my Minimal theme from my Mac, but it's fairly low contrast...usable, but not ideal. The Boox is a b&w eInk device and if anyone has sugge”
“Is there a way to display both the complete relative & complete absolute line numbers on Obsidian? I'm used to it in Neovim, and it would also be useful for Obsidian. I currently use it in vim-mode with both, but only the current absolute line number. Thanks in advance for any suggestions. submitted by /u/p186 [link] [comments]”
“Does anyone know if there's a plugin for displaying text in the editor as pages/documents. Like a Word or Google doc -document. I use Obsidian mainly for writing, and seeing the text as pages helps structuring and comprehending the text. Thanks! submitted by /u/heilona [link] [comments]”
“Hello all, Just got into Obsidianmd (yesterday) to speed up my workflow and ran into a problem where my palette in the bottom left corner was cut in half. Looked it up and it seemed like one of the answers was to toggle on Tray Mode. So I went to find "Toggle on Tray Mode" and I don't see it. What am I supposed to do? Any help would be appreciated! submitted by /u/Flimsy_Dragonfly3046 [link] [comments]”
“Not even one note a day! For a main vault, using MOC with this few notes is unnecessary.”
“Ive been using the waypoint plugin for a while to make automatic links between folders and their notes however today all the notes ive added for the last couple hours have not been updating in any of the waypoints. Ive made about 10ish notes in the last hour, each of them within a folder (with folder note) that is itself within another folder (within a folder note) however unlike usual they are not updating in the waypoint link tree. I dont believe this is a syntax issue as ive tried to redo to”
“Im trying to convert samsung notes files into obsidian but some of these notes have a lot of images. I tried converting word files to md but the images just wouldnt show up, tried copy pasting the whole thing and again, only text would show or the app would bug. EVEN when i tried copy pasting each image one by one into obsidian, the bug happened [had nearly 0 characters on the note before it] submitted by /u/Ok-You5223 [link] [comments]”
“I did not. I believe I later switched to Fit; it works better on my phone. I also sync it before making changes and after, so I have the latest version on git.”
“I'm running linux (Ubuntu 24), and have recently encounted an error with pasting screenshots into Obsidian. For some reason, when the screenshot is above a certain arbitruary size, the image fails to appear. When I try to view said pasted image in my file explorer, the attached file is 0B in size. However, I can still paste the image in other applications: In the image below, I had no problem screenshotting and pasting the test screenshots of the reddit logo (1) and part of the submission pa”
“I guess that depends on what you mean by play nice? Tasknotes has a "task folder" and an task identifier (tag or property). My plugin only has a task folder. So if the file is in that folder its treated and converted to a "task" by this plugin. This means don't try to use the same folder for both. My plugin can read and convert Tasknote files if placed in its task folder. Also, Tasksnotes could identify my plugins tasks if they have Tasknotes identifier (tag or property).”
“general onboarding and shortcuts - I do not want to watch a video Would also like to add that trying to send feedback through the settings makes the app crash. The spacing on the send button is taking up a lot of space”
“It really doesn't matter to which note you capture and if it's one or many, commands work from everywhere. I only mentioned the daily note, because in basic Obsidian it's probably the most conveniently accessible, as you have a prompt to open it. With quick capture plugins you probably can use modals or specify any given note.”
“Hey, first post here. I am newbee, been using Obsidian for a while, yet getting into it. First of all i want to apologize if this question maybe was frequently questioned, unclear or something, idk, but.. Can you suggest me realization of this idea (with default Obsidian capabilities, default plugins, community plugins or by anything other): The current/today's meta-note, and along with it, some kind of automation mechanism is needed, an automated algorithm for "smart" "sugges”
“if i'm happy to pay for obsidian sync (and rely on obsidian desktop for the more complex plugins), would ignis work with that?”
“Obsidian's Hotkeys panel doesn't accept PageUp, PageDown, Home, End, or Tab as bare-key hotkeys — pressing any of these without a modifier while setting a hotkey simply doesn't register. But you can do it by editing .obsidian/hotkeys.json directly. Excerpt from .obsidian/hotkeys.json : "plugin-id:some-command": [ { "modifiers": [], "key": "PageUp" } ], "plugin-id:another-command": [ { "modifiers": [], "key": "”
“Basically I'm using Obsidian for my work and I have tags with clients, projects and products. I'd like to have all the notes with the property tag clients colored in a certain way in the files view and, ideally, in the graph view. I've tried a few plugins but some didn't work, some provided a rainbow of colors I couldn't edit. I'd love some suggestions on how can this be done. submitted by /u/vaidab [link] [comments]”
“Hey everyone. After weeks of testing, I'm still searching for the right self-hosted notes app. Here's what I've tried and why each one didn't work for me: Obsidian — too painful to set up on the VPS, and even using it locally with Syncthing I wasn't happy with the editing experience: clicking one line jumps to another, selecting a word selects several others, the constant switching between edit/preview modes is annoying. Anytype — I was starting to understand how it works, bu”
“There is an called Resurf on Mac where you can just save everything like links pictures notes etc to review them later Is there something that I could use inside obsidian, maybe with a plugin that gives me the same features ? I struggle with ADHD and forget things that I saw somewhere and I would love to be able to have that in the same space where I have all my university related notes so just everything inside obsidian submitted by /u/New_Yorker1234 [link] [comments]”
“Lately Book Search doesn't work (error 429) and I don't know what to do in order to keep my books tracked. submitted by /u/TheBigManzano [link] [comments]”
“this video showcases my focus modes and how i set obsidian to automatically change wallpapers to match. i figured the automation process could extend to more universal use cases - not sure if anyone else has already talked about this? general setup: i used the ios shortcuts app, the advanced uri community plugin, and the snippet commands community plugin. extract the advanced uri for the snippet command by using command palette: advanced uri: copy uri for command <don't specify a file>”
“Has anyone noticed improvements in stylus input performance on iPad or Android tablets since the update? I was considering getting a tablet with a stylus, but had always been skeptical about the performance. (The idea is to be able to replace OneNote with Obsidian and the Excalidraw Plugin. Embed PDFs on the Canvas, highlight and annotate, take handwritten notes over 90- minute sessions, etc.) I appreciate your experiences and suggestions. submitted by /u/Zorngickel [link] [com”