AutoDater

Automatically add Created and Updated dates to new and edited Markdown notes. Zero setup, no manual date tracking.

Requires Obsidian 1.13.0 or later.

What it does

After you create and edit a note, its YAML frontmatter looks like this:

---
Created: 2026-08-01
Updated: 2026-08-01
---

When you edit a note, AutoDater adds or updates its Updated date.

• Preserves existing Created values
• Processes Markdown notes only
• Stores dates inside the note, so they travel with the file when frontmatter is preserved
• Waits six seconds after editing before updating frontmatter
• Works without templates or configuration

Install

1. Open Settings → Community Plugins.
2. Click Browse and search for AutoDater.
3. Install and enable it.

Settings

AutoDater uses Created, Updated, and YYYY-MM-DD by default. You can customize the property names and choose date-only (YYYY-MM-DD, DD-MM-YYYY, or MM-DD-YYYY), local date-time, or ISO 8601 date-time formats. On Obsidian 1.13.0 and later, these settings also appear in the global settings search.

Changing a property name affects future writes only. Existing frontmatter properties are not renamed automatically.

Property names are matched case-insensitively when updating existing fields. For example, Updated and updated are treated as the same property, while a different name such as modified creates a separate property.

Important behavior

• Existing notes are not backfilled when you enable AutoDater.
• Editing an existing note adds or updates Updated, but does not add a missing Created value.
• Created records the date AutoDater first sees a new note without an existing Created property.

Development

npm install
npm run build

See GitHub Releases for version history.