Folder Space

Focus on a single folder, or turn any folder into a saved "Space" that opens as its own tab in the left sidebar — right next to Files and Search.

Folder Space brings back the two features people actually loved from other plugins, in one small, focused, up‑to‑date package. No bloat, no forced ecosystem, no unmaintained code.

Why this plugin exists

If you've been in the Obsidian community for a while, you've probably run into two tools that almost did what you wanted:

The problem with Folder Focus Mode

The old Folder Focus Mode plugin let you "focus" the file explorer on a single folder and hide everything else. Great idea. The problem? It's been effectively abandoned — no meaningful updates, and it breaks or feels stale against newer Obsidian versions. People kept using it anyway because nothing replaced it, quirks and all.

The problem with make.md (Spaces)

make.md has a genuinely excellent feature: Spaces — the ability to save a folder as its own navigable panel that lives beside your Files tab. It's fantastic.

But there's a catch: you can't get just that feature. Installing make.md means adopting its entire ecosystem — a redesigned interface, its own way of handling notes, contexts, flow blocks, and a pile of functionality you may not want. If all you wanted was the Spaces panel, you had to swallow the whole thing. That's a dealbreaker for a lot of people who already have their vault set up exactly how they like it.

The solution

Folder Space does both of those things — and only those things.

• The focus capability of Folder Focus Mode, rebuilt and maintained.
• The saved Spaces panel of make.md, extracted into a standalone, lightweight plugin.

It touches nothing else in your vault, doesn't reinvent your file tree, and stays out of your way.

Features

🎯 Folder Focus

Right‑click any folder in the core file explorer → Focus on this folder. Everything else in the explorer disappears, leaving just that folder and its contents. A small banner appears at the top of the explorer showing the focused folder's name with an ✕ to exit.

• The focus persists across restarts.
• Exit anytime via the banner's ✕ or the Exit folder focus command.
• If you rename or move the focused folder, the focus follows it automatically.

🗂️ Saved Spaces

Right‑click a folder → Create space from folder. That folder becomes a saved Space that opens as its own tab in the left sidebar, alongside Files and Search — each with its own full file tree containing every child file and folder.

• Spaces are saved and reopen automatically when you restart Obsidian (they persist in your sidebar layout).
• Create as many Spaces as you want, each with its own icon and name.

🧩 Multiple folders in one Space

A Space isn't limited to a single folder. Right‑click any folder → Add folder to a space… (or use a Space's ⋯ → Add folder to this space…) to add more root folders to the same Space. Each added folder appears as its own labelled section — with its own icon — stacked below the first, so you can group several unrelated trees into one panel. Each section has its own right‑click menu to create notes/folders, change its icon, or remove it from the Space (removing a folder never deletes it).

🎨 Custom Icons (Lucide + Iconify)

Every Space can have its own icon. The built‑in icon picker searches:

• Obsidian's native Lucide icon set (offline, instant), and
• The entire Iconify library — thousands of icons from hundreds of icon sets.

The chosen icon is stored locally in the plugin data, so once you pick it, it works offline. Icons show up on the sidebar tab, the Space header, and in menus. (The Iconify search requires an internet connection; Lucide search always works offline.)

🌳 Native file tree — themes & snippets just work

This was a deliberate design choice: the Space's file tree uses the exact same DOM structure and CSS classes as Obsidian's core file explorer (nav-folder, nav-file-title, tree-item, collapse-icon, and so on).

That means:

• Your theme styles the Space tree automatically.
• Your CSS snippets that target the file explorer apply here too — no extra work.
• Hover states, the active‑file highlight, collapse animations, and extension badges all look identical to the native tree.

🛠️ Full file management inside Spaces

The Space tree isn't just a viewer — it's fully interactive:

• Open files — click to open, Ctrl/Cmd+click or middle‑click to open in a new tab.
• Create new notes and folders directly from the Space header or right‑click menu.
• Rename and delete files and folders.
• Drag files straight into the editor.
• A complete right‑click menu, including file‑menu items contributed by your other plugins.
• Renaming or moving a folder keeps its Space (and any active focus) perfectly in sync.

⚙️ Manage everything easily

Rename a Space, change its icon, focus its folder, reveal it in the file explorer, or remove it — all from:

• the Space's ⋯ (more options) menu,
• the sidebar tab's right‑click menu, or
• Settings → Folder Space.

Removing a Space only removes the saved Space — your folder and files are never touched.

How to use

1. Create a Space: right‑click any folder in the file explorer → Create space from folder. It opens as a new tab in the left sidebar.
2. Focus a folder: right‑click any folder → Focus on this folder. Click the ✕ in the banner to exit.
3. Change a Space's icon: open the Space, click ⋯ → Change icon, and search Lucide or Iconify.
4. Rename or remove: use the ⋯ menu, the tab's right‑click menu, or the settings tab.

Commands (Command Palette)

• Folder Space: Open space
• Folder Space: Create space from folder
• Folder Space: Focus on folder
• Folder Space: Exit folder focus

You can bind any of these to hotkeys in Settings → Hotkeys.

Installation

Manual installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Create a folder named folder-space inside your vault's .obsidian/plugins/ directory.
3. Drop the three files into that folder.
4. Reload Obsidian, then enable Folder Space in Settings → Community plugins.

Building from source

npm install
npm run build   # produces main.js
npm run dev     # watch mode for development

Compatibility notes

• Snippets that target the file explorer by its tree classes (.nav-folder, .nav-file-title, etc.) apply to Spaces automatically. If a snippet targets the explorer specifically via .workspace-leaf-content[data-type="file-explorer"], add [data-type="folder-space-view"] to its selector to cover Spaces too.
• Plugins that inject into the native explorer (e.g. per‑folder icon plugins) modify only that view, so their additions won't appear inside a Space.

Credits

Inspired by the two features this plugin sets out to preserve:

• Focus — the idea behind Folder Focus Mode.
• Spaces — the saved‑folder panel from make.md.

Folder Space reimplements these as an independent, lightweight plugin with no dependency on either.

License

MIT