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Copy for Email and Chat

Copy a selection or a whole note as email-ready rich text. Paste it into Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, Word or a WeChat official-account editor and the formatting survives — headings, tables, callouts, highlighted code, task lists, and even Mermaid diagrams and math (converted to images). The same copy also carries a chat-ready plain-text flavor, so pasting into WeChat, Slack or iMessage gives clean structured text instead of raw markdown.

Plain markdown copied out of Obsidian pastes as raw syntax (**bold**, # heading, | tables |). Existing "copy as HTML" approaches rely on classes and <style> blocks, which mail clients strip on paste. This plugin instead:

• Inlines every style on every element — the only formatting mail clients reliably keep.
• Rasterizes what mail can't render: Mermaid diagrams, charts, MathJax formulas and SVGs become embedded PNG images.
• Embeds vault images as data URIs so they paste along with the text.
• Uses a fixed light palette so text stays readable in a white email body even if you run a dark Obsidian theme.
• Writes a chat-styled plain-text flavor too: chat apps (WeChat, Slack, iMessage) that ignore rich text get clean text whose structure survives in glyphs — 【Heading】, 「emphasis」, ① ② ③ lists, ▏ quote bars — with every marker customizable in settings.

Usage

• Copy selection — command palette, or right-click a selection → Copy for email and chat (editing view). Works in reading view too: select rendered text, then run the command.
• Copy note — copies the active note (frontmatter excluded; optionally prepends the title).
• Ribbon button — the mail icon in the left ribbon copies the current selection, or the whole note when nothing is selected.

Then paste into your mail compose window.

[!note] A plain Cmd/Ctrl+C is still Obsidian's native copy (markdown text, or theme-styled HTML from reading view, which mail clients render poorly). Use the plugin command or menu item to get the email-ready version.

What maps to what

Chat plain text

Chat apps ignore the rich-text flavor entirely — WeChat, for example, supports no formatting in messages at all. So the same copy also writes a plain-text version where structure is redrawn with glyphs chat apps render fine:

【Note title】

■ Section

「Key point」 survives as visible emphasis.

▍Subsection

① First
② Second
　• nested item

▏ Quoted line

※ Callout title
▏ Callout body

Every marker is configurable under Settings → Copy for Email and Chat → Plain text: swap any glyph, or switch the style to Minimal for undecorated plain text. Tables stay as a | b rows — proportional chat fonts can't align columns, so for tables a screenshot is still the honest answer.

Notes & limitations

• Pasted data-URI images work in Gmail, Apple Mail, Outlook for Mac and new Outlook. Classic Outlook for Windows may not display them while composing; recipients are unaffected when sending from the supported clients.
• Diagrams are rasterized against your current Obsidian background, so they always stay readable; for light-styled diagrams in email, use a light theme.
• On mobile, diagrams/math degrade to a [diagram] placeholder (iOS cannot reliably rasterize off-screen renders); text, tables and images copy fine.

Install

Copy for Email and Chat is available in the Obsidian Community Plugins directory:

1. Open Settings → Community plugins → Browse.
2. Search for Copy for Email and Chat and install it.
3. Enable it — the commands and the right-click menu item appear immediately.

More plugins by HWY1dot0

• Calendar Hub — one calendar that surfaces every note from a given day, in any folder.
• Screenshot Selection — capture selected note content as a theme-faithful PNG.

If this plugin helps your workflow, you can buy me a coffee.

License

MIT