Colored File Names

Color folders and files in the file explorer from the context menu. Manage your own color palette, and export or import your colors to back them up or move them to another device.

Features

• Color from the context menu: right-click a file or folder and select Colorize. Works with several selected items at once.
• Palette: define named colors in the settings. Changing a palette color updates every file and folder that uses it.
• Light and dark themes: colored names are darkened or lightened where needed so that they stay readable in both themes. Optionally give a palette color its own color for dark themes.
• Style: color the name, the background of the row, or both, with adjustable background strength. Folders and files have their own style, for example backgrounds for folders and colored names for files. Colored folder names can be shown in bold.
• Recursive folder colors: per folder, choose whether files and subfolders inside take its color, unless they have their own.
• Follows your files: colors move along when you rename or move files and folders, including everything inside a moved folder.
• Export and import: save your colors to a JSON file inside your vault, load them again, copy them to the clipboard or paste them from JSON.
• Import from File Color: take over the palette and colors of the File Color plugin.
• Command: colorize the current file from the command palette.

Usage

1. Right-click a file or folder in the file explorer.
2. Select Colorize.
3. For folders, check Recursive to color everything inside the folder as well. For files the checkbox is disabled.
4. Pick a color, or No color to remove it.

To color several items, select them with Ctrl/Cmd or Shift, right-click and select Colorize n items.

Settings

Appearance

Palette

Add, rename, recolor, reorder and remove colors. The order is used in the color picker. Removing a color also removes it from all files and folders.

Each color has a second color picker for dark themes. By default it matches the first one. Once you change it, the palette color uses that color in dark themes as it is, without adjusting it for readability. The reset button next to it goes back to the same color.

Colored files and folders

Lists every colored file and folder, with the color and whether a folder is colored recursively. Remove single entries, or clean up colors of files that no longer exist.

Export and import

Moving colors to another device

Plugin settings are stored in the .obsidian folder, which many sync tools skip. The settings file is a normal file in your vault and is synced with your notes:

1. On the first device, select Save to settings file.
2. Let your notes sync.
3. On the other device, install the plugin and select Load from settings file.

Migrating from File Color

1. Keep File Color installed and open Settings → Colored File Names.
2. Under Export and import, select Import from File Color. On a fresh installation the palette is replaced; otherwise the colors are added to your palette.
3. Disable File Color.

Styling with CSS snippets

A colored item in the file explorer (.tree-item) gets the class cfn-colored and the custom properties --cfn-color (the palette color for the current theme, used for backgrounds) and --cfn-text-color (the color of the name, adjusted for readability). Folders colored with Recursive get cfn-cascade, items that take the color of such a folder additionally get cfn-inherited. The file explorer gets cfn-folder-style-<style> and cfn-file-style-<style>, where <style> is text, background or both, and cfn-bold-folders when Bold folder names is on.

/* Italic names for items that take the color of a recursively colored folder */
.cfn-inherited > .tree-item-self {
  font-style: italic;
}

Privacy

The plugin works entirely offline. It makes no network requests and collects no data. It writes to your vault only when you select Save to settings file, and reads the File Color configuration only when you import from it.

Installation

From the community plugins directory

1. Open Settings → Community plugins and turn off restricted mode.
2. Select Browse, search for Colored File Names and select Install.
3. Select Enable.

Manual installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Copy them into <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/colored-file-names/.
3. Reload Obsidian and enable Colored File Names under Settings → Community plugins.

Requires Obsidian 1.13.0 or later.

Acknowledgements

Inspired by File Color by ecustic. This plugin is a separate implementation and does not contain its code.

License

MIT