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Toggle Excluded Folders

by Alexander Leonov
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Description

This plugin has not been manually reviewed by Obsidian staff. Quickly hide or show user-defined folders from the file explorer, search and graph by toggling Obsidian's Excluded files setting.

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Latest Version

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Changelog

See all version on GitHub

README file from

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Toggle Excluded Folders

Obsidian community plugin that toggles your Excluded files list on and off with one click. Useful when you keep an archive folder, attachments, templates, or anything else noisy out of your file explorer / search / graph by default, but occasionally want to dig into it without losing the configuration.

How it works

The plugin operates on Obsidian's built-in Settings → Files and links → Excluded files list — it doesn't maintain its own. There's no settings tab for the plugin itself; configure what to exclude in the native UI and the plugin just flips it on/off.

  • One click on the ribbon icon (or the Toggle visibility command) — stashes the entire excluded list to plugin storage and clears the native list. Everything becomes visible.
  • Click again — restores the list from the stash. Exclusions are back in effect.

Works with every filter type Obsidian's Excluded files setting supports:

  • Folder paths: Archive/
  • Files: Templates/note.md
  • Regex: /^_/

Search and Graph views are refreshed automatically after toggling (File Explorer updates on its own).

Install

From community plugins

Settings → Community plugins → Browse → search "Toggle Excluded Folders" → Install → Enable.

Manual

Download main.js and manifest.json from the latest release and drop them into <Vault>/.obsidian/plugins/toggle-excluded-folders/. Reload Obsidian, enable in Community plugins.

Usage

  1. Open Settings → Files and links → Excluded files and add the folders, files, or regex patterns you want to be able to hide.
  2. Click the ribbon icon (eye/eye-off). First click: hide. Second click: show.

Alternatively, bind the Toggle visibility command to a hotkey via Settings → Hotkeys.

Editing the list while filters are "off"

You can add entries to the native list at any time. Anything you add while filters are off will be merged in on the next restore — it won't get lost.

Caveats

  • Uninstall / disable. When you disable or uninstall the plugin, it restores its stash back into the native excluded list before unloading, so your exclusions keep working without the plugin installed.
  • Search or Graph stops refreshing after an Obsidian update. The plugin pokes these views through internal APIs. If one breaks, the toggle itself still works and you'll see a one-shot notice — workaround: close and reopen the affected view after toggling. Please open an issue with your Obsidian version.
  • Obsidian removes the config API. If Vault.getConfig / setConfig disappear in a future version, the plugin detects this on load, shows a notice, and disables itself instead of crashing.

For developers

This plugin reads and writes Obsidian's "Excluded files" list through APIs that are not part of the public plugin SDK. They are isolated in two files so the surface area is easy to audit and patch:

  • Vault.getConfig("userIgnoreFilters") / Vault.setConfig("userIgnoreFilters", …) — the only way to access the native excluded-files list programmatically. Used in src/vault-config.ts.
  • Search view internals — view.setQuery / view.onSearch / view.searchComponent — to make Search re-run after the filter list changes (it doesn't subscribe to userIgnoreFilters). Used in src/refreshers.ts.
  • Graph view internals — view.dataEngine.update() / view.dataEngine.render() — same reason, for Graph and Local graph views. Used in src/refreshers.ts.

Type signatures for everything above live in src/obsidian-internals.d.ts as a module augmentation, so the rest of the code reads as plain typed access with no as any / as unknown as casts at call sites.

Build

npm install
npm run dev    # esbuild watch — writes main.js in place
npm run build  # tsc typecheck + production esbuild
npm run lint

Source layout

Under src/:

  • main.ts — plugin lifecycle, toggle logic, ribbon, command
  • vault-config.ts — isolated wrapper around the undocumented Vault.getConfig/setConfig for userIgnoreFilters
  • refreshers.ts — REFRESHERS array describing how to nudge each consumer (Search, Graph, …). Add an entry to support a new view or third-party plugin.
  • obsidian-internals.d.ts — module augmentation + standalone interfaces for every undocumented Obsidian API the plugin touches. Single source of truth for the private surface area.

There is no test framework. Verify manually: reload Obsidian, click the ribbon, confirm folders appear/disappear in File Explorer, Search, and Graph.

License

See LICENSE.

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