Obsidian: Control from Chrome

This article shares how to interact with your Obsidian Vault from within the Chrome web browser — specifically via the address bar. This technique can be used to search your vault, create a new note, or append content to an existing note.

I’m sharing this because it’s fun and interesting but not necessarily “the best way” to work with Obsidian.

I think it can be useful if you are already in Chrome and want to offload a bit of information. For example, you may wish to save a website address, save a TODO item, or create a new note for a fleeting idea.

Show Case

Below are GIFs that demonstrate: saving a link, saving a task, creating a new note, and searching your vault.

How Does It Work

The technique is a combination of Chrome’s Site Search and Obsidian’s URI protocol.

In Chrome, you can add our own search engine. You specify a keyword, say “youtube” and a URL “https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s”. Once this is configured, you can quickly perform a search in the address bar. You simply type the keyword, press tab, enter your search term and hit…