Substack Clipper

Archive Substack posts as Obsidian-flavored Markdown with images, media, and threaded comments.

Features

• Saves any public Substack post as a Markdown note with YAML frontmatter
• Downloads images, videos, audio, podcast episodes, transcripts, and PDF attachments
• Fetches and renders threaded comments as a separate embeddable note
• Media files use ![[wikilink]] embeds for native Obsidian playback
• Converts Substack footnotes to standard [^N] Markdown footnotes
• Strips CDN URL prefixes for clean image references
• Handles paywalled posts gracefully (saves the available preview)
• Works on desktop and mobile

Installation

Install from community.obsidian.md

From Obsidian's settings or preferences:

1. Community Plugins > Browse
2. Search for "Substack Clipper"

Manually:

1. download the latest release archive
2. uncompress the downloaded archive
3. move the substack-clipper folder to /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/
4. Settings > Community plugins > reload Installed plugins
5. enable plugin

or:

1. download main.js, manifest.json & styles.css from the latest release
2. create a new folder /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/substack-clipper
3. move all 3 files to /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/substack-clipper
4. Settings > Community plugins > reload Installed plugins
5. enable plugin

Usage

1. Open the command palette (Ctrl/Cmd + P).
2. Run Clip substack post.
3. Paste a Substack post URL (must contain /p/ in the path).
4. The plugin fetches the post, downloads media, and creates the note.

Output structure

Substacks/
  alice/
    my-article.md
    my-article-comments.md
    my-article/
      image.jpg
      video.mp4
      podcast.mp3
      attachment.pdf

The main note includes frontmatter with title, subtitle, type, audience, date, comment count, and links to all media. Comments are embedded via ![[slug-comments]].

Settings

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/gapmiss/substack-clipper.git
cd substack-clipper
npm install
npm run build

License

MIT