You all know the story by now.
Obsidian has plugins. A lot of them. The functionality that they provide is the main reason that so many people find they can create a working second brain system in the app.
There are so many plugins, however, that you can’t know what they all do. There are hidden features and functionalities that a lot of people miss out on, especially within plugins that aren’t very popular.
That’s what this article’s here to share. There are some plugins that I use in my Obsidian system that are very uncommon — uncommon to the point that they have less than 20,000 downloads (most of them under 10k).
I’d like to share them here, explaining what they do, and why they have a place in my system so that you can take some inspiration of your own and perhaps implement these plugins yourself.
Let’s get started…
ChatGPT MD (18,189)
This plugin brings ‘a (nearly) seamless integration of ChatGPT into Obsidian’, in the words of the plugin’s description.
They’re absolutely right.
This plugin has been my go-to for ChatGPT-style conversations with AI, from almost the first day I discovered that you can use AI in Obsidian.
The format is: you write something at the top of your note, call the GPT API, and the plugin streams the response right underneath your input in the markdown note. It’s just like interacting with ChatGPT on a browser, except within Obsidian.
I use this plugin along with QuickAdd, so that I can input a query from any point in my vault, and have the answer inserted into a new note, in a folder that I specify.
Overall a very useful plugin, especially if you’re looking for a simple way to bring the power of AI to your Obsidian vault.
Frontmatter Tag Suggest (12,366)
This plugin does what it says on the tin.
Very useful when you manage the tags for your document in the ’tags’ property in the frontmatter, it creates a modal that searches and suggests your existing tags when you type, similar to what happens when you type inline after a hashtag.
It’s useful when you need a concise set of tags, recommended by Tiago Forte, so that the tagging doesn’t lose its meaning and perspective in a sea of other tags in your notes.
Overall a very simple plugin, but useful, especially if you’re someone who relies on tagging notes within the YAML metadata of a file.
Pandoc Reference List (7,335)
All the plugins for the rest of the article have under 10,000 downloads. That doesn’t stop them from being useful though.
This next plugin is very effective for those who use markdown citations in their academic work.
It creates a pane in the sidebar of your app, and depending upon the bibliography and the citation style language that you’ve specified in your frontmatter, it shows you a formatted reference list for the active document.
This list can be copied to your clipboard and inserted at the end of a document, or simply referenced whilst you’re building your manuscript to keep track of what sources you’ve already included in your work.
Folder notes (4,512)
Quite a new option within the community plugins, this is far and away the best option for implementing the folder notes feature in Obsidian.
It’s more customisable than other folder note options, allowing you to specify the storage location of the folder note, as well as a template used, name, sidebar visibility as well as whether the file is markdown or a canvas.
Folder notes are really useful in a system within Obsidian — they have a use in project management, as well as indexes in a system such as a Zettelkasten, integrating well with the Dataview plugin. If you’re looking for a new way to gain an overlook of a folder or a project in a single note, check out Folder notes.
Whisper (3001)
This is the best plugin for transcription in Obsidian.
As the name suggests, it uses OpenAI’s Whisper technology, which is some of the best AI tech around for transcriptions.
Again, it’s a simple plugin, but it does its job very well. There’s a button in the ribbon that you click, producing a menu in which you can start, stop and pause a recording. Once stopped, a new note generates, containing your generated transcript.
I’ve used this during lectures when something important or complicated comes up. I run Whisper and take some notes elsewhere so that I have two different explanations of the same knowledge that I can turn into flashcards later, deepening my understanding of the topic once I come to revise or study.
This plugin, along with ChatGPT MD, requires an OpenAI subscription, but this is relatively inexpensive. I’ve said before that so long as you use this technology efficiently, to save you time on tasks that are somewhat unimportant, it’s well worth the minor investment.
qmd as md (452)
This plugin won’t matter to many people reading this, but I have it installed, so I thought I’d mention it quickly.
What the plugin allows you to do is open a Quarto markdown file in Obsidian as though it’s ordinary markdown. I’ve been doing this for my lab reports, so that I can render R plots of the data that I’ve gathered within the final output, without having to insert images or anything of that sort.
I could do this in RStudio, but having it in Obsidian means that I can open the manuscript of the lab report directly next to my notes on references, which saves me time and attention that would be lost switching between applications and tasks.
No tabs (337)
The least-downloaded plugin in this list is No tabs. Sometimes I find that created notes or links are opening in other tabs when I don’t want them to.
No tabs solves this.
The purpose of the plugin is for it to try its hardest to make sure that only one tab is open in Obsidian at any one time.
Some might find this annoying but in my system, it’s useful because I’ve learned to quickly navigate through my vault and open any file that I might need at a moment’s notice. I’ve found being able to keep a single tab at the centre of your attention helps with focusing your mind on the task at hand.
These are my list of the best plugins available in Obsidian with under 20,000 downloads. There are hundreds of plugins available in the Obsidian community, and if you need a solution to a specific pain point in the app, there’s likely something in there that will be able to help you out.
I hope that you’ve learned something new from reading this piece and as always, thanks for reading!