Bullet

Turn Markdown lists into a fast, keyboard-driven outliner.

Bullet makes nested lists feel closer to Workflowy or Roam Research without giving up the plain-text structure of an Obsidian note. Type, move, indent, select, fold, and drag entire branches while Bullet keeps their hierarchy intact.

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Requires Obsidian 1.12.7 or later. Bullet supports desktop and mobile.

What Bullet changes

• List-aware editing: Enter, Shift+Enter, Tab, Shift+Tab, and repeated Command+A or Ctrl+A operate on list structure instead of raw Markdown prefixes.
• Whole-branch movement: move or drag an item together with every nested child.
• Focused navigation: keep the caret in editable content and away from hidden bullet or checkbox markup.
• Visible structure: connect nested items with indentation guides, add guides beside root list chunks, and fold branches from the guides themselves.
• Mobile-friendly folding: move native list and heading fold controls to the right edge in Live Preview.

Automatic editing, appearance, folding, and drag-and-drop behavior can be adjusted from Settings → Bullet.

Install

Community Plugins

1. Open Settings → Community plugins in Obsidian.
2. Turn on community plugins if Obsidian asks you to leave Restricted Mode.
3. Select Browse, search for Bullet, and select Install.
4. Select Enable after installation.

Obsidian also documents this flow in Community plugins.

Manual installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Put the three files in <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/bullet/.
3. Reload Obsidian, then enable Bullet under Settings → Community plugins.

Start with these controls

Create a nested list, place the caret in one of its items, and try the following controls. A branch means the current item and all of its nested children.

The movement shortcuts are registered by Bullet. The other controls replace Obsidian's behavior only while their corresponding Bullet settings are enabled and the caret is in a list.

Features

Keep editing inside the outline

With Keep typed text in lists enabled, directly typed body text stays in a list item or one of its continuation lines. Headings, block quotes, horizontal rules, fenced code blocks, and frontmatter remain available as document-level Markdown structures.

On a completely empty line, press Space to create an empty list item immediately. Indented continuation lines remain plain note lines.

The rule applies to direct typing and deletion. Pasted text, dropped text, and changes made by other plugins are left unchanged.

Enhanced Enter creates a new item at the appropriate level and outdents an empty nested item. Shift+Enter adds a continuation line to the current item without creating another bullet.

Move, indent, and select branches

Movement commands carry the complete branch, so rearranging a parent never separates it from its descendants. Tab and Shift+Tab apply the same rule when changing indentation.

Repeated Command+A or Ctrl+A expands selection from the current item's content to its subtree and then to the surrounding list scope. The Select list content command exposes the same behavior to the Command Palette and mobile toolbar.

Keep the caret in editable content

Bullet can keep the caret outside the Markdown prefix for bullets, numbered items, and checkboxes. Choose one of three modes under Keep cursor out of list markers:

• Allow cursor in markers: allow the caret inside all Markdown prefixes.
• Keep out of bullets: protect bullet and number prefixes, but allow checkbox editing.
• Keep out of bullets and checkboxes: keep the caret in item content.

Hold Alt or Option while navigating or clicking to place the caret inside protected markup temporarily.

Fold from indentation guides

Bullet can draw native-looking guides between nested items and beside each root-level list chunk. With guide actions enabled, click a guide to fold or unfold the child branches it connects.

The separate Fold the list and Unfold the list commands operate on the item at the caret. These commands do not have default shortcuts, so you can assign your own under Settings → Hotkeys.

Drag branches on desktop

Drag a bullet, fold indicator, or checkbox to move its complete branch. Drag-and-drop is a desktop feature; the keyboard and Command Palette movement actions remain available on mobile.

Use Vim and mobile controls

When Obsidian's Vim mode is enabled, o and O create list items while the caret is inside a list and fall back to ordinary lines outside one.

On mobile, Bullet can move the native fold controls for list items and headings to the right edge of Live Preview. List editing commands can also be added to Obsidian's mobile toolbar.

Commands

Bullet registers these actions in Obsidian's Command Palette. You can assign custom shortcuts under Settings → Hotkeys; editor commands can also be added to the mobile toolbar.

Settings

All settings are under Settings → Bullet.

Editing

Appearance

Folding

Advanced

Compatibility

• Bullet requires Obsidian 1.12.7 or later and is available on desktop and mobile.
• The editing enhancements work in Obsidian's Markdown editor. Vertical-line folding, outer guides, and right-side mobile fold controls are designed for Live Preview.
• The fold and unfold commands require Obsidian's Fold indent editor setting to be enabled.

Support and credits

If something behaves unexpectedly, run Bullet: Show System Info from the Command Palette and include the displayed details in a bug report. For deeper diagnostics, enable Debug mode and copy the Bullet logs from Obsidian's developer console.

Bullet is a fork of vslinko/obsidian-outliner. The original project was created by Viacheslav Slinko.

License

MIT