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Explorer

by manemajef
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Description

This plugin has not been manually reviewed by Obsidian staff. A file explorer view with card and list views. Displays folder contents with sorting, pagination, and search.

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Latest Version

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Changelog

See all version on GitHub

README file from

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Explorer

Browse and organize your vault from inside your notes.

Explorer turns folder notes into file explorer views, with navigation, temporary folder views, desktop drag-and-drop, rename, pin, delete, search, and configurable display options.

Available in the Obsidian community plugin store.

Features

  • Card and list views for folder contents
  • Folder buttons, temporary folder views, and configurable folder-note creation
  • Optional hiding of folder-note files in Obsidian's sidebar
  • Desktop drag-and-drop for moving notes and folders
  • Context menu actions for moving folders, renaming and deleting items, and pinning notes
  • Optional matching-folder-note renaming when a folder is renamed
  • Optional homepage navigation and homepage opening in new empty tabs
  • Per-block exclusion of selected nested folders
  • Sorting, pagination, and scoped search within the current Explorer view
  • Mobile-friendly layout, optional glass-style controls, and RTL support

Usage

Add an Explorer block to any folder note:

```explorer
```

The block displays files from the note's current folder using your default settings.

You can add a block from the command palette with:

  • Insert code block

You can create a new folder with a matching folder note from:

  • Create folder in current note folder

That command creates Folder/Folder.md, inserts an Explorer block, and opens the new note.

File Management

On desktop, drag notes and folders onto a displayed folder or onto the parent button to move them. Dragging a folder note moves its associated folder after confirmation.

Right-click a note to rename, pin, or delete it, or a folder to rename or delete it. Rename sync can keep a folder and its matching folder note named together. Deleting a folder displays a warning before removing its contents.

On mobile, use the context menu instead of drag-and-drop. Long-press a folder button and use Obsidian's move action to move the folder itself, not just its folder note.

Screenshots

Cards

List

Settings

Dark Mode

Navigation

Explorer treats folder notes as navigation pages. A folder note is a Markdown file named after its folder:

Projects/Projects.md

When you open a folder from Explorer, the plugin looks for the matching folder note. If it does not exist, Explorer creates it with a basic Explorer block.

Missing folder notes

When a folder does not have a matching folder note yet, Explorer can open a temporary folder view instead of creating a Markdown note immediately.

The default for new installs is Links and edits:

  • Clicking the folder card opens a temporary folder view.
  • Clicking the unresolved folder-note link creates the Markdown folder note.
  • Editing or saving a temporary folder view also creates the Markdown folder note.

Other modes are available in Missing folder notes:

  • Always create preserves the old behavior and creates missing folder notes during navigation.
  • Edits only creates a folder note only when saving or editing a temporary folder view.

Existing users keep the old Always create behavior when upgrading unless they change this setting.

Obsidian sidebar

Explorer can hide folder-note files from Obsidian's built-in sidebar file tree. When this is enabled, clicking a folder name in the sidebar can optionally open the matching folder note, or open a temporary folder note when the Markdown note does not exist yet.

This only handles clicks on the folder name. The collapse arrow and row whitespace keep Obsidian's normal sidebar behavior.

Homepage

Explorer can also use a root-level homepage when navigating above a root folder note.

By default, homepage navigation is enabled. If the homepage name is left empty, Explorer uses the vault name:

My Vault.md

You can change this in plugin settings:

  • Use homepage
  • Open homepage in new tabs
  • Homepage name

The homepage must be a root note name, not a nested path. If the configured homepage does not exist, Explorer creates it with:

```explorer
view: "cards"
sortBy: "edited"
depth: 10
pageSize: 21
```

If homepage navigation is disabled, the parent button is hidden when it would navigate above a root folder note.

Enable Open homepage in new tabs to replace newly opened empty tabs with the homepage. The option is off by default so installing Explorer does not change Obsidian's standard blank-tab behavior. This is inactive when the New Tab Default Page community plugin is enabled.

Commands

Explorer registers these command palette commands:

  • Insert code block
  • Create folder in current note folder
  • Go to homepage
  • Go to parent folder

Go to homepage opens or creates the configured homepage. Go to parent folder opens the parent folder note, a temporary parent folder view, or the homepage when the current note is already in the vault root and homepage navigation is enabled.

Configuration

Most options are available in the plugin settings UI. You can also override block-specific options inside an Explorer code block:

```explorer
view: "cards"
sortBy: "edited"
depth: 2
pageSize: 21
paginationStyle: "modern"
excludedFolders: ["Archive"]
```

Supported block settings:

Setting Values
view cards, list
sortBy newest, oldest, edited, name, nameDesc
depth 0-10
paginationStyle modern, classic, none
pageSize 6-100
showFolders true, false
showTags true, false
cardExt folder, ctime, mtime, desc, none, default
displayedNotes supported, markdown, all, none
excludedFolders Nested folder paths, e.g. ["Archive", "Drafts/Old"]
textDirection auto, ltr, rtl

excludedFolders hides selected folders and their contents from that Explorer block only. Plugin-only settings include missing folder-note behavior, homepage behavior, reading-mode handling for folder notes, folder-note rename sync, Obsidian sidebar folder-note behavior, nested folder-note display, the parent button, glass controls, card icons, and list style defaults.

Search

Use the search icon in the action bar to filter the current Explorer view.

  • Plain text searches file names
  • #tag searches frontmatter tags
  • @name searches folder notes

Fit

Explorer is designed for vaults organized around folders and folder notes. It is not a vault-wide query engine and does not try to replace Dataview, Bases, or tag/database workflows.

Install

Install from Obsidian's community plugin browser, or clone the repository into your vault:

git clone https://github.com/manemajef/obsidian-explorer "/path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-explorer"

Then enable Explorer from Obsidian's Community plugins settings.

Development

Install dependencies:

npm install

Build:

npm run build

Run development watch mode:

npm run dev

Lint CSS:

npm run lint:css

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. For larger changes, open an issue first so the behavior and scope can be discussed before implementation.

When contributing:

  • Keep behavior folder-note focused
  • Prefer plugin settings for global behavior and block settings for per-view display
  • Keep UI components thin; Explorer behavior lives in src/explorer/ by feature
  • Run npm run build before submitting changes

License

MIT

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