Update Time

Automatically update front matter to include creation and last update times.

This Obsidian plugin keeps the created and updated front-matter properties of your notes in sync with the file's actual creation (ctime) and modification (mtime) timestamps. Once installed and enabled, it runs in the background — no commands to click, no manual housekeeping.

This plugin is a simplified reimplementation of the update-time-on-edit plugin. It was originally created to work around the fact that the original plugin did not integrate well with Obsidian Publish (see beaussan/update-time-on-edit-obsidian#75).

Features

• Automatic — front matter updates happen whenever a note is modified (from Obsidian or from external tools).
• Accurate — values come from the file's underlying ctime and mtime.
• Respects existing values — created is never overwritten; updated is debounced (MINUTES_BETWEEN_SAVES = 1 minute) to avoid fighting active edits.
• Folder exclusions — skip templates, archives, or any other folder.
• Excalidraw-aware — Excalidraw files are detected and skipped.
• Canvas-safe — Canvas.md and non-Markdown files are skipped.
• Fully local — no network calls, no telemetry.

Installation

From the Obsidian community catalog (recommended)

1. In Obsidian, go to Settings → Community plugins.
2. Disable Restricted mode if you have not already.
3. Select Browse, search for Update Time, install it, and then enable it.

Manual installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest GitHub release.
2. Copy them into <YourVault>/.obsidian/plugins/update-time/ (create the folder if it does not exist).
3. Reload Obsidian and enable the plugin in Settings → Community plugins.

Configuration

Open Settings → Community plugins → Update Time to add folders to the exclusion list. Any note whose path starts with an excluded folder will not be touched.

Full settings reference: docs/configuration.md. User guide: docs/.

Important: this plugin modifies files in your vault. Back up your vault before enabling it.

Known issues

Multi-device sync conflicts

The plugin reacts to all file modifications — including writes made by sync tools (Obsidian Sync, Syncthing, etc.). If Obsidian is open on two devices at the same time, each device can trigger front-matter updates in response to the other's syncs, producing conflict files.

Mitigations: only leave Obsidian running on one device at a time, or enable the plugin on a single device.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT.

News & support

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