URL Enricher

Rich, non-destructive link previews for Obsidian

Transform plain URLs into beautiful previews with title, description, and favicon — without modifying your markdown.

Quick Start

Plugin works only in Live Preview mode

Head to Settings > URL Enricher to customize global behaviour, or use frontmatter to customize per page.

Customize per-page:

Override global settings per-page. Must start on line 1!

---
preview-style: card                   # inline | card
max-card-length: 400                  # 1-5000 (recommended: 100+)
max-inline-length: 200                # 1-5000 (recommended: 50+)
show-favicon: true                    # true | false
include-description: true             # true | false
inline-color-mode: subtle             # none | subtle
card-color-mode: subtle               # none | subtle
---

Features

🎨 Two Preview Styles

Inline (compact):

• Flows naturally with text
• URL completely hidden
• Perfect for reading

Card (detailed):

• Material Design aesthetic
• Shows description and site name
• Great for bookmarks and research

✨ What You Get

• 100% Non-Destructive - Markdown source never modified
• Cursor-Aware - Inline previews switch to editing mode when cursor in/around url
• Automatic Metadata - Fetches title, description, favicon
• Per-Page Config - Override settings with frontmatter
• Domain Enhancements - Special handling for Wikipedia, Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google
• Real-Time Updates - Settings apply instantly

Customization

Custom Preview Colors

Want specific colors? Use Obsidian CSS snippets:

1. Settings → Appearance → CSS snippets folder (click folder icon)
2. Create url-enricher-colors.css:

/* Inline preview background */
.url-preview--inline {
  background: #4a90e2 !important;
}

/* Card preview background */
.url-preview--card {
  background: #50c878 !important;
}

3. Settings → Appearance → CSS snippets → Enable snippet

Supported URL Formats

https://github.com                            # Bare URL
[custom text](https://github.com)             # Markdown link
[](https://github.com)                        # Empty link text
[[https://github.com]]                        # Wikilink (URLs only!)

Not supported: Image embeds ![](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mattmarotta/obsidian-url-enricher/HEAD/url), code blocks, non-HTTP protocols

Common Issues

Previews not showing?

• ✅ Enable Live Preview mode (not Source mode)
• ✅ Check URL format: https://example.com
• ✅ Settings → URL Enricher → Clear cache button

Frontmatter not working?

• ⚠️ Must start on line 1 with ---
• ⚠️ Check spelling: preview-style (not previewstyle)

Stale or wrong previews?

• Go to Settings → URL Enricher → Clear cache

Performance issues?

• Disable descriptions in Settings
• Reduce description length in Settings

Broken URL warnings (⚠️)?

Some sites block bots (403 Forbidden). Disable warnings: Settings → URL Enricher → HTTP Error Warnings → OFF

For more help, see TROUBLESHOOTING.md.

Domain Enhancements

Special handling for popular sites:

• Wikipedia - Fetches article intros, shows "WIKIPEDIA" as site name
• Reddit - Format: r/Subreddit — Title, extracts post content
• Twitter/X - Fetches tweets via oEmbed, shows @username
• Google Search - Extracts query: "Google Search — your query"
• LinkedIn - Cleans hashtags and comment counts from titles

Privacy & Network Usage

This plugin makes network requests to provide rich previews:

• Page Metadata: Fetches HTML from URLs you include in your notes to extract titles, descriptions, and favicons
• Wikipedia API: For Wikipedia links, queries the Wikipedia API to fetch article summaries
• Twitter oEmbed API: For Twitter/X links, uses Twitter's public oEmbed endpoint to fetch tweet content
• Google Favicon Service: Requests high-resolution favicons from Google's public service for better display quality

Privacy:

• ✅ No telemetry or analytics
• ✅ No user data collection
• ✅ All network requests are for fetching public web content you've linked to
• ✅ All data cached locally in your vault's plugin folder
• ✅ You control what URLs are processed

Development

npm install                 # Install dependencies
npm run dev                 # Watch mode
npm run build               # Production build
npm run lint                # Run ESLint (enforces Obsidian plugin guidelines)
npm test                    # Run tests (618 tests)

See CONTRIBUTING.md for detailed development guide.

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for:

• Development setup
• Code standards (100% type-safe TypeScript)
• Release process
• Common gotchas

License

MIT - See LICENSE

Made with ❤️ for the Obsidian community

• Troubleshooting - Common issues
• Changelog - Version history
• Issues - Report bugs
• Discussions - Ask questions