Auto Remove

An Obsidian plugin that gives files an expiry date. Notes declare how long they should live, or a folder decides for them; once the time is up, Auto Remove shows you exactly what it found and removes only what you confirm.

Vaults accumulate transient notes — inbox captures, daily scratch, half-finished drafts — that nobody ever gets round to clearing out. Auto Remove clears them out, without ever surprising you.

Cleanup never runs silently. Whenever expired files are found, a dialog lists them as a folder tree with every file selected.

When it runs

Auto Remove keeps checking:

• when Obsidian starts, once the workspace is ready;
• every five minutes, in the background;
• when you edit, create or move files, with changes coalesced so a burst is one pass;
• when you change a rule, so shortening a time to live takes effect straight away;
• when you ask, with Auto Remove: Run now.

It does not need to be running at the moment a file expires. A file that expired while Obsidian was closed is found at the next launch; one that expired while the laptop was asleep is found when it wakes up. There is no schedule to miss and no "last run" to catch up on — Auto Remove asks a simple question every time it looks: is this file past its time to live, right now?

You are asked once about any given set of files. If you dismiss the dialog, Auto Remove will not keep asking about the same unchanged set — use Auto Remove: Run now to review it whenever you like.

How a file expires

The clock runs from a file's modified time. Editing a file restarts its time to live.

1. Notes that opt in

A note participates when its frontmatter says so:

---
auto-remove: true
ttl: 3
---

Opted-in notes use the default action and default destination from settings. Folder rules never apply to them: an explicit opt-in is treated as the note's own instruction and outranks everything else.

auto-remove: false is the mirror image — an explicit refusal that no folder rule can override. It is how you exempt a single note from a rule covering its folder.

2. Folder rules

A folder rule applies a time to live to every note inside a folder, at any depth. Each rule sets its own TTL, action, destination, ignore patterns and file scope.

When rules nest, the most specific folder wins — a rule on Inbox/drafts overrides one on Inbox.

3. Anything else

A file no note and no rule claims is left alone. Auto Remove never acts on a file it was not explicitly told about.

In short

What a rule covers

Each folder rule has an Applies to setting:

• Notes only (the default) — only Markdown files are eligible.
• Notes and attachments — PDFs, canvases and other files are eligible too.

Attachments are opt-in because they carry no properties. When Auto Remove moves a note it strips the auto-remove and ttl properties so the note cannot expire again from its new home — but an attachment has nothing to strip. If its destination is itself covered by a rule, an attachment moved there would be filed again on the next pass, and again after that.

Ignore patterns

Each folder rule takes gitignore-style patterns, one per line, resolved relative to that rule's folder:

Templates/**
*.canvas
*.pdf
!Templates/keep.md

Actions

Trash hands the file to Obsidian, which honours your own Settings → Files and links → Deleted files preference — system trash, the vault's .trash folder, or permanent deletion. Auto Remove has no opinion of its own.

Move relocates the file to a destination folder, creating it if needed and renaming rather than overwriting if something is already there. Afterwards the auto-remove and ttl properties are stripped, so an archived note does not simply expire again from its new home.

Settings that are not doing anything

If a rule cannot be carried out, Auto Remove says so on the settings page and does nothing with it. A Move with no destination folder never falls back to trashing anything.

A rule is inactive when:

• it is set to Move with no destination folder;
• its destination is inside the folder it covers — files would expire again from their new home;
• its destination is a hidden or relative folder, which Obsidian's vault API cannot resolve.

Finding out why

Two commands answer "why was this file not removed?":

The settings page also has a Preview button, and a Developer logging switch that writes every decision to the developer console:

Auto Remove: Kept Inbox/note.md — Under Rule: Inbox with a 30 day time to live; expires in 12 days.
Auto Remove: Would remove Inbox/old.md — Last modified 40 days ago, past its 30 days time to live under Rule: Inbox; will be sent to the trash.

File contents are never logged — only paths, rule names, ages and outcomes.

Known limitations

• A file's modified time is the only clock. Files restored from a backup, or imported from an export, keep their old timestamps and may be eligible the moment they arrive.
• A file modified in the future — by clock skew, or by a sync tool — will not expire until the clock catches up.
• Deferred files (open in an editor when their turn came) are re-examined when the tab closes. If you edit the file first, the action is dropped, because editing restarts its time to live.
• Auto Remove does not delete folders, only files.

Collaboration and Project Participation

This plugin has been developed with love, for non-commercial purposes, and under this license.

You can support our continued efforts in the following ways:

• Contribute to the development of this plugin
• Report bugs or suggest a feature for development via the Issues section on this GitHub page
• Recommend installing and using this plugin to your friends
• Follow our website and Telegram channel