Journal Hub

Keep a journal in Obsidian without filing it by hand. Journal Hub creates each entry from a template, files it into year and month folders, and gives you one place to browse every entry: a hub view, a GitHub-style activity grid and a plain Markdown index you can read anywhere.

_{Screenshots use a test vault with invented entries.}

Why Journal Hub

Daily-notes plugins give you one note per day with a fixed name. Journal Hub is for a journal where each entry has its own name (2026-08-07 - Long walk), maybe several per day, kept in your folder and layout, and where you want to see your journal: browse it by year and month, find an entry in seconds and notice how often you actually write. It needs no other plugin (no Templater, no Dataview).

Features

• New entries from a template. One command (or the ribbon button) asks for a keyword and creates 2026-08-07 - Keyword.md directly in its folder, filled from a template, with the cursor where you start writing. A built-in template is ready to use; you can add your own.
• Automatic filing. When a note inside your journal gets a dated name, it is moved to its year/month folder and missing folders are created. A command files existing entries, showing you every move before anything happens. Folders it leaves empty go to the trash.
• Turn any note into an entry. When an empty note appears in your journal folder (new note button, file explorer, mobile), Journal Hub asks whether to make it an entry. Say no and you can do it later from the command palette or the file menu. Existing text and properties are kept.
• Hub view with three modes: a timeline (years and months that fold), a list with a bar per month to filter by, and a calendar. Search ignores accents and case. Click to open an entry, hover to preview it.
• Activity in the sidebar: a compact GitHub-style grid of the days you wrote, with your current streak, best streak, days written and entries per week. Give it more room and it grows.
• Hub note: a Markdown note with links to every entry by year and month, to read your journal without the plugin (mobile, GitHub). It is rewritten only when entries change.
• Works with your structure. Any journal folder (nested or the vault root), any subfolder layout, month names in English or Spanish, any date format in the entry name.
• Safe first run. Until you choose a journal folder it does nothing. On first launch it suggests folders that already look like a journal and detects how they are organised. Choosing one only saves the setting: no note is moved or changed.

Screenshots

Timeline	Calendar

List	Activity in the sidebar

New entry	First run

Getting started

1. Install and enable Journal Hub.
2. On first launch, pick one of the suggested folders (or choose any folder in the settings).
3. Create an entry with Journal Hub: Create new entry or the notebook button in the ribbon.
4. Open the hub (book button) and the activity grid (grid button) from the ribbon, or with Journal Hub: Open journal hub and Journal Hub: Open journal activity.

How it works

Entry names

An entry is a note whose name starts with a date, optionally followed by a separator and a keyword: 2026-08-07, 2026-08-07 - Long walk, 07-08-2026 - Long walk… The date format is a setting (YYYY-MM-DD by default). Notes in the journal folder without a date in the name are listed apart in the hub and never moved. If such a note has a date property (created by default, ISO format), it is shown in the hub by that date, but never moved.

Folder layout

Entries are filed under the journal folder following a pattern. Common layouts are offered in the settings; you can also write your own.

Tokens: YYYY, YY, MMMM (month name), MMM (short month name), MM, M, DD, D. Text in [brackets] is literal. Month names can be English or Spanish, lowercase, capitalized or uppercase.

The defaults (YYYY/MM folders, YYYY-MM-DD names) are the most common choice and sort correctly in any file explorer.

Templates

The built-in template:

---
title: {{title}}
created: {{date}}
kind: Daily Journal
---
# {{keyword}}

{{cursor}}


---
# Tags:

#dailyNote #journal #journal/dailyNote

To make your own, choose a templates folder in the settings (notes there never count as entries) and run Copy built-in template to templates folder to start from the built-in one. Placeholders (no code is run):

Hub note

By default Journal Hub.md inside the journal folder (the path is a setting). It carries the property journal-hub: generated and a notice that the plugin writes it. Journal Hub never overwrites a note at that path without that property. It has no "last updated" line, so it only changes when your entries do, which keeps Git-synced vaults quiet.

Commands

No command has a default hotkey.

Privacy

• No network access, no telemetry.
• Journal Hub works from note names, dates and properties. The only note text it reads is: a new note's, to check that it is empty before offering to convert it; the note you choose to convert, to keep its text; and its own hub note.
• Moves use Obsidian's file manager, so links follow your Automatically update internal links setting (if it is off, Obsidian asks for each note that has links).

Compatibility

Obsidian 1.15.0 or later, desktop and mobile. The interface is in English and Spanish (it follows Obsidian's language).

Installation

• Community plugins: in Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search for Journal Hub, or open its listing and choose Add to Obsidian.
• Manual: download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/journal-hub/, then enable it in Settings → Community plugins.

Development

npm install, then npm run dev. Tests: npm test. Notes for contributors (in Spanish) are in docs/desarrollo.md.

En español

Journal Hub crea las entradas de tu journal con una plantilla, las acomoda en carpetas por año y mes y te da un hub para verlas todas (línea de tiempo, lista y calendario), un mosaico de actividad en la barra lateral y una nota índice que se regenera sola. La interfaz está en español si Obsidian está en español. No se conecta a internet ni lee el texto de tus entradas.

License

MIT