Backlink Cache

Asking Obsidian which notes link to this one means scanning every note in the vault. On a large vault that is slow enough to be felt — the Backlinks pane lags, and every plugin that needs backlinks pays the same cost, repeatedly.

This plugin keeps a backlink index and answers from it instead. The Backlinks pane gets faster, and so does anything else that asks. On a small vault you will not notice; that is the point at which you do not need it.

More screenshots

Demo vault

The documentation is an interactive demo vault. Every feature has a note that explains what it does and why you would want it, with buttons that measure the difference for real.

Start reading here — it is plain markdown, so it works on GitHub with nothing installed.

A copy of the vault ships with every release. You can access it via any of the following:

1. Running the Backlink Cache: Open demo vault command.
2. Downloading backlink-cache-demo-vault.zip from the Releases. It unzips into a single backlink-cache-demo-vault-<version> folder.
3. Browsing its source in demo-vault/ in this repository.

What it does

• A backlink index that keeps itself current, so the Backlinks pane and every plugin that asks for backlinks stop rescanning the vault. 01 Backlink cache
• Three ways to ask — fast from the cache, safe after pending changes settle, or the original built-in implementation for comparison. 02 Fast, safe, and original backlinks
• Canvas files are indexed too, and their links are exposed through getCache(), which Obsidian leaves empty for canvases. 03 Canvas backlinks
• Frontmatter markdown links count as backlinks when the Frontmatter Markdown Links plugin is installed. 03 Canvas backlinks
• Refresh behavior is configurable. 04 Settings

For plugin developers

This plugin replaces app.metadataCache.getBacklinksForFile() with a faster implementation, adds an overload accepting a vault path as well as a TFile, and keeps the original reachable:

const fast = app.metadataCache.getBacklinksForFile(pathOrFile);
const safe = await app.metadataCache.getBacklinksForFile.safe(pathOrFile);
const original = app.metadataCache.getBacklinksForFile.originalFn(file);

To use the updated signatures from your own plugin, copy types.d.ts into your code. 02 Fast, safe, and original backlinks runs all three side by side.

Installation

The plugin is available in the official Community Plugins repository.

Beta versions

To install the latest beta release of this plugin (regardless if it is available in the official Community Plugins repository or not), follow these steps:

1. Ensure you have the BRAT plugin installed and enabled.
2. Click Install via BRAT.
3. An Obsidian pop-up window should appear. In the window, click the Add plugin button once and wait a few seconds for the plugin to install.

Debugging

By default, debug messages for this plugin are hidden.

To show them, run the following command:

window.DEBUG.enable('backlink-cache');

For more details, refer to the documentation.

Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in the CHANGELOG.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING to get set up.

Support

My other Obsidian resources

See my other Obsidian resources.

License

© Michael Naumov