Meaningful Name

A plugin for Obsidian that shows a friendly title from your note's frontmatter everywhere in the app — without renaming the file.

If your notes are named like timestamps (202208251731.md), random IDs, or any scheme that isn't human‑readable, this plugin lets you keep those filenames while Obsidian displays the title you actually wrote in the note's frontmatter.

[!IMPORTANT] The plugin never renames or edits your files. It only changes what Obsidian displays. Your filenames on disk stay exactly as they are.

What you get

You choose where the title is shown — turn each one on or off in settings:

• File explorer, Search, Quick switcher / suggestions, Bookmarks and Backlinks — see titles instead of filenames while you navigate.
• Tabs, note header, inline title and the window frame — see the title while you read and write.
• Graph and Canvas — nodes and cards show titles too.
• Links — optionally rewrite [[202208251731]] link text to the note's title.

See the full list with screenshots in Features.

• Installation
• Quick start
• Features
• Templates · Template examples
• Settings reference
• Processor (advanced)
• FAQ & troubleshooting
• API

Installation

From the Obsidian app (recommended)

Open Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search for Meaningful Name, install it and enable it.

Manual

Download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into your vault under .obsidian/plugins/meaningful-name/, then enable the plugin in Settings → Community plugins.

Quick start

Three steps, about a minute:

1. Add a name to a note's frontmatter. Open any note and put a name at the top:

---
name: My readable note title
---

2. Tell the plugin which key to read. Open Settings → Meaningful Name. The Common main template is name by default — that means the plugin reads the name key from each note. Leave it as is to use the example above.

3. Turn on where you want it shown. In the same settings page, enable the Explorer feature. The note in your file explorer now shows My readable note title instead of the filename.

That's it. Enable more places from Features, and learn how to build smarter titles in Templates.

A frontmatter value used as a title must be a string, a number, or a list. If a key is missing or empty, the plugin falls back to the original filename. See Template examples for every case.

Note

Feel free to open an issue for bugs, mistakes, or ideas for this plugin.

Origin and license

Meaningful Name is a modified version of Front Matter Title by Snezhig and its contributors. The original code and all its history are kept in this repository.

Modified by hacpaka since 2026-10-22: the plugin was renamed (new plugin id, so it installs separately from the original) and reads the name frontmatter key by default instead of title. See the changelog for details.

Like the original, this plugin is free software under the GNU General Public License v3.0. It also includes the API type definitions from Snezhig's front-matter-plugin-api-provider under the ISC license; see src/Components/ApiAdapter/Contracts.ts.