The Only 6 Plugins You Need For Obsidian

It’s not a good idea to rely too heavily on plugins when using Obsidian. Indeed, Obsidian is basically just a markdown editor, and if your system requires too many plugins, you lose the advantage of the portability of markdown files.

However, some plugins are must-haves. They improve user experience and productivity so much, without impacting too much your system’s portability.

I’m going to share with you my list of must-have plugins.

Why Only 6 Plugins?

Basically, I wanted to make a list of 10 plugins. But I didn’t find 10 really must-have plugins. For me, it’s only these 6 that are really almost mandatory. Everything else is a bonus that isn’t necessarily necessary and doesn’t bring enough value to justify the addition (yes, I have a rather minimalist approach).

Of course, depending on your needs, certain plugins can become must-haves. For example, I use a plugin that allows me to search for books and create notes related to those books, all from Obsidian, which for me is a must-have because it saves me an incredible amount of time. But I’m not going to talk about this kind of plugin because it’s not general enough, so it’s unlikely that you’ll need it.

Templater

Templater is a plugin that lets you create templates, i.e. models that can be used when you want to create new notes all with the same structure. For example, for each book I read, I store an associated note in Obsidian. As these notes are similar, I’ve created a template to speed up their creation.

It is possible to create templates without using a plugin in Obsidian. However, the built-in functionality is a little limited, whereas with Templater you have no limits as this plugin interacts directly with Obsidian’s API via JavaScript code. Of course, you don’t need to know how to code, just understand the syntax and the functions you can use with Templater.

For example, if you want to include today’s date when you create a note, simply insert the following code in your template, which will be replaced by today’s date when you create a note based on this template using templater:

<%tp.date.now()%>

For more information about Templater, you can check this article I wrote a few months ago!

QuickAdd

I mention this plugin second because it integrates rather well with Templater. QuickAdd allows you to add new content to your vault in an efficient way. It can save you so much time because it automates certain repetitive actions such as creating a note, moving it to the right folder, adding the current date, renaming it, etc…

It integrates very well with Templater because you can use templates to create your notes, but also perform other actions in addition to simple note creation. For example, you can create a note linked to a book you’ve just read following a template, move this note to your “Book Notes” folder, then perform other actions as required, such as linting your notes using the Linter plugin, etc… All automatically.

If you have programming skills, you can even create your own scripts and call them up from QuickAdd.

As with Templater, I’ve written an article to explain how to use QuickAdd, as it’s a little confusing to use at first. You can find it here if you want more information about it!

Dataview

Dataview is a plugin that turns your vault into a database in which you can query notes meeting certain criteria. It works a bit like SQL, in that you can say “show me a list of 10 notes contained in the “books” folder and containing the tag “#fiction”, in alphabetical order.”

If you have a large, well-organized vault, you can easily find your notes using Dataview.

I’ve created several index notes that simply contain Dataview queries. For example, I have a note that displays all the notes I’m currently working on, or one that displays all my favorite notes.

Here are a few examples of Dataview queries:

To display all my MOCs:

LIST
FROM #wiki/notes/plantation 
WHERE file.name != "Plantation"
SORT file.name ASC

To display the movies I’ve watched:

TABLE
("![|100](" + image + ")") as Cover, Author as Author, Rating as Rating
FROM #wiki/references/omdb
WHERE file.name != "OMDb Reference"
SORT Rating desc

Obsidian Git

You can’t realize how much it is important to back up your vault until a problem happens. Obsidian Git is a plugin that makes this task simple and automatic.

In addition, Obsidian Git uses Git, a version control system. This gives you access to the history of modifications made to your notes, which can be particularly useful if you modify them quite often.

Finally, Obsidian Git also lets you replace Obsidian Sync, as you can easily synchronize your notes between your devices via Git.

Git, on the other hand, is designed for text files. If your vault contains a lot of more complex files, such as images, you can still use Obsidian Git, but there may be problems.

Periodic Notes

If you create notes on a regular basis (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.), Periodic Notes is a must-have for you. It makes things so much simpler because it lets you create these notes according to a template and a name defined in parameters, and move them to a folder also chosen in parameters, all automatically.

The most time-consuming part is simply creating the template, and then you don’t need to go through the headache of copying and pasting your daily notes every day.

Personally, I don’t use daily notes, but I do use this plugin because weekly and monthly notes alone make it worthwhile. And if you just need daily notes, by the way, it’s a built-in feature in Obsidian. But weekly notes and more are not built-in…

Excalidraw

Excalidraw is a plugin that lets you draw and integrate your drawings directly into your notes. I consider it a must-have because it allows you to somehow store hand-drawn notes directly in Obsidian. And it’s the most efficient way of doing this. Typically, it’s much more practical than writing a note by hand and taking a photo of it to integrate into your vault.

The uses are numerous. Personally, I often use it to quickly draw diagrams and schematics or to take notes related to mathematics or physics, as it’s much faster to draw formulas in Excalidraw than to use LateX.

As for me, I have a tablet computer, so I can easily make notes by hand and write as I would on paper with my pen, but this plugin is still very practical even without a tablet, as Excalidraw is well-designed and lets you make drawings with the mouse.

Final Note

Of course, I use more than 6 plugins with Obsidian. But the essential ones I can’t do without are the ones listed here. The others provide a little comfort, but no essential functionality.

I recommend using as few plugins as possible, so if you can get by with these 6, you don’t need any more!

Find all my Obsidian-related stuff here: Use Obsidian like a Pro

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