Update Radar

Checks your installed community plugins for updates in the background, shows what changed, and tells you which plugins look abandoned. A successor to Plugin Update Tracker, which has not had a release in over a year.

Formerly "Plugin Update Checker" and, briefly, "Community Update Checker"; renamed because the directory does not allow the word "plugin" in a name and the second name was already taken by an earlier submission.

Obsidian only looks for plugin updates when you open Settings → Community plugins → Check for updates. This plugin does it for you, every few hours, and puts the answer in the status bar.

What you get

• Updates in the status bar. "3 plugin updates", hidden when there are none. Click it to open the list.
• A list of what changed. Each row shows the installed version, the new one, and, when you open Release notes, the notes from the plugin's GitHub release, rendered as Markdown.
• Update one or all. The same installer Obsidian uses; enabled plugins are reloaded afterwards.
• Ignore this version. Skips exactly that version; the next release shows up again. Stop ignoring brings it back.
• Go back to an earlier version. An update broke something? Right-click a plugin in the list, use the history button on an update row, open Install an earlier version at the bottom of the list, or run the command of the same name. You see the plugin's releases (up to 30) with version, date and the start of the notes; the installed one is marked, and a version that needs a newer Obsidian than yours is greyed out. Update Radar then stops offering the version you went back from.
• Compatibility. An update that needs a newer Obsidian than yours is listed apart, with the version it needs, and is never offered.
• Plugin health. Flags plugins that were removed from the directory (with the reason), have had no release in two or more years, or are not from the directory (installed by hand or with BRAT).

Network use

This plugin sends web requests, to GitHub only. There is no analytics and no other service.

• Once a day it reads three public files from obsidianmd/obsidian-releases (the plugin list, the removed list and the stats), the same ones Obsidian itself uses.
• For each installed plugin from the directory, it reads that plugin's latest manifest.json from its GitHub releases, like Obsidian's own update check.
• When you open Release notes on a row, it reads that release from the GitHub API.
• When you choose Install an earlier version, it lists the plugin's releases from the GitHub API and downloads main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the release you pick.

Nothing about your vault, notes or settings is sent. The requests do reveal your IP address to GitHub, as any download would. Turn off Check shortly after Obsidian starts and set Check every to Never to check only when you ask.

Commands

Settings

Notes

• Updating uses Obsidian's internal plugin installer, which is not part of the public API. If a future Obsidian changes it, the plugin says so instead of failing silently; updating from Settings → Community plugins keeps working either way.
• The plugin directory only serves the latest version of each plugin, so Install an earlier version downloads from the plugin's GitHub releases instead. Everything is downloaded and checked first (it must be the same plugin, and not need a newer Obsidian than yours). Only then are main.js, manifest.json and styles.css replaced, and if writing fails the old files are put back. The plugin's data.json is never touched. The plugin is then turned off and on again. A release without main.js and manifest.json attached cannot be installed. An older version may not understand settings a newer one saved; Update Radar cannot know.
• Release notes are shown with code-block languages removed and [[links]] escaped, so nothing in them runs and nothing in them touches your vault.
• Plugins with updates are installed one at a time; this plugin's own update is installed last.
• "No release in 2+ years" uses the directory's last-release date. Plenty of finished plugins are stable rather than abandoned; the flag is a prompt to look, not a verdict.
• Versions are compared as semantic versions, so 1.10.0 is newer than 1.9.0 and a pre-release such as 2.0.0-beta.1 is older than 2.0.0. A version that is not semver (four parts, a date) counts as an update whenever it differs, like Obsidian's own check.
• Plugins that are not in the directory cannot be checked for updates and appear only under health.

Installation

In Obsidian, open Settings → Community plugins → Browse and search for "Update Radar".

More plugins by Siulved54

All of them are in the community directory: Settings -> Community plugins -> Browse, then search for the name.