Pictether

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Keep your vault clean. Keep your attachments organized.

Pictether is a simple, local-first external attachment manager for Obsidian Desktop. Paste, drag, and manage images, videos, and PDFs naturally, while keeping them neatly organized outside your vault.

Why Pictether?

• Simple by design. Set an attachment directory and start using it. No complicated setup or workflows.
• Organized by time. Attachments follow a predictable namespace/YYYY-MM-DD/HHmmss-xxxxxx.ext (six random hexadecimal digits) structure, making files easier to browse, locate, and manage.
• A cleaner vault. Keep bulky media files outside your notes without sacrificing the familiar Obsidian editing experience.
• Backup when you need it. Optionally back up attachments to S3-compatible storage and recover missing local files.
• Easy to take elsewhere. Export notes as standard Markdown with relative attachment links.

Your notes stay in Obsidian. Your attachments stay organized.

Usage

1. Choose an attachment directory. Set the attachment root in the plugin settings. The default is Pictures/markdown-assets under your home directory. The vault name is read from Obsidian automatically.
2. Insert attachments. Paste or drag images, videos, and PDFs into a note, or run Insert Attachment. View them in Reading View or Live Preview.
3. Connect object storage. Enter your S3 endpoint and bucket. Click the plus icon beside Access credentials, enter your Access Key ID and Secret Access Key, test the connection, and save. For Cloudflare R2, use auto as the signing region. A Token value is not required.
4. Enable automatic backup. Existing and new attachments are backed up automatically. Use an entry's three-dot menu to edit or delete credentials. Gray means not tested, red means the connection test failed, and green means it passed. A small footer shows backup attempts, successes, conflicts, and failures.
5. Restore missing attachments. Missing local files can be recovered from cloud storage. You can also use Restore missing attachments in settings or run Restore Missing Attachments. Conflicting content is never overwritten automatically.
6. Export a note. Run Export Note with Attachments to create ordinary Markdown with relative attachment links for other tools.

Compatibility

Pictether currently supports Obsidian Desktop only.

The interface follows Obsidian's language setting: Chinese locales use Simplified Chinese; English and other locales use English. No separate plugin language setting is needed. After changing Obsidian's language, follow its reload prompt.

Supported formats:

• Images: PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, BMP, AVIF, and SVG.
• Videos: MKV, MOV, MP4, OGV, and WebM. Playback depends on the codec.
• Documents: PDF.

New JSON and Markdown imports remain with Obsidian. Audio, HEIC, and TIFF are not supported.

Important Notes

Attachments use mdasset:// references and require Pictether for display in the original notes. Use the export feature when sharing with other Markdown tools.

Cloud storage is optional for local use. A successful connection test does not verify upload permissions.

Reset Warning

Reset deletes managed local attachments in every namespace under the current attachment root, including attachments used by other vaults sharing that directory. Unbacked files cannot be recovered.

Review the directory and file counts before confirming. Notes and cloud objects are preserved. Reconfigure object storage afterward to restore backed-up attachments.

Author: dhengsun · MIT License · Third-party notices