Visual Explorer

A card-based note browser for Obsidian. Displays notes as a visual list or gallery with image thumbnails, category tags, dates, and a text preview — making it easy to browse and navigate your vault. Can run as a workspace tab or docked in the sidebar like the native file explorer.

Features

• Three view modes — list (cards or a compact flat style), an image-first grid, and widescreen (one full-width 16:9 image per row); cycle with the toolbar button, remembered per folder
• Sidebar mode — dock the gallery in the left sidebar instead of a tab; on mobile it shows up in the slide-in panel next to the file explorer
• Configurable toolbar buttons — choose which actions appear next to the search bar: sort, view toggle, new document, create folder, favorites, recently opened, settings
• Folder navigation — subfolders appear at the top as clickable entries with a breadcrumb trail and an optional file count next to the name
• Live search — filter notes and folders by title or tag instantly
• Search scope toggle — switch between searching only the current folder or the entire vault; at vault root the scope is always vault-wide
• Tag chips — clickable tag filters above the list, sourced from the current view or the whole vault (configurable, or turned off)
• + button → action menu:
  • Sort — choose from sort options with the active one highlighted (see below)
  • View toggle — cycle between list, grid and widescreen
  • Favorites — shows all notes with favorite: true in frontmatter
  • Recently opened — shows the last N modified notes across the vault
  • New document — create a note directly in the current folder
  • Create folder — create a new subfolder
  • Every entry is hidden automatically while its toolbar button is enabled — actions are never duplicated and never lost
• Sorting — via the + menu, or an optional sort button in the toolbar (while the toolbar button is enabled, the + menu hides its sort entries automatically), per view session:
  • Modified (newest → oldest / oldest → newest)
  • Created (newest → oldest / oldest → newest) — respects date/created frontmatter
  • Name (A → Z / Z → A) — applies to both notes and subfolders
  • Title date (newest → oldest / oldest → newest) — parses a date at the start of the filename
• Long-press (mobile) / right-click (desktop) → context menu on notes:
  • Add / remove favorite
  • Rename
  • Move to folder — pick any vault folder from a searchable list
  • Create folder — create a new subfolder in the current location
  • Archive — move note to the configured archive folder
  • Open in new tab
  • Delete (with confirmation)
• Long-press (mobile) / right-click (desktop) → context menu on folders:
  • New note here
  • Create folder — create a subfolder inside it
  • Rename folder
  • Archive folder
  • Open in new tab
  • Delete folder (with confirmation)
• Favorites — marked with ★ in the list, stored as favorite: true in frontmatter (usable by other plugins like Dataview)
• Settings backup — export all plugin settings to a file in the vault and import them back; survives uninstalling the plugin and syncs with the vault
• Note counter — shows number of notes and subfolders in the toolbar
• Auto-refresh — gallery updates automatically when notes are added, modified, or deleted
• State persistence — remembers the open folder after restarting Obsidian
• Ribbon icon + command — open the explorer without right-clicking a folder
• Multilingual — German and English UI
• Mobile compatible — works on Android and iOS

Installation

Community Plugins (recommended)

1. Open Settings → Community plugins → Browse
2. Search for "Visual Explorer"
3. Click Install, then Enable

Manual installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release
2. Create a folder .obsidian/plugins/visual-explorer/ in your vault
3. Copy the three files into that folder
4. Enable the plugin under Settings → Community Plugins

Usage

Opening the explorer

• Right-click any folder in the file explorer → "Als Galerie öffnen" / "Open as gallery"
• Ribbon icon (left sidebar) → opens the explorer at vault root
• Command palette → "Visual Explorer öffnen" / "Open Visual Explorer"

Sidebar mode

By default the gallery opens as a workspace tab. Set Settings → Visual Explorer → Open in to Left sidebar to dock it in the left sidebar instead — the ribbon icon, command and folder context menu then all open (and reuse) a single gallery leaf there, right next to the native file explorer. On mobile, that's the slide-in panel at the bottom of the left drawer. Opening a note always opens it in a new tab in the main area, never inside the sidebar leaf.

Navigation

• Subfolders appear at the top with a › chevron and bold name — click to navigate into them
• Breadcrumb at the top left shows the current path — click any segment to go back
• Search field filters notes and folders live by title or tag

Search scope toggle

Next to the search field is a scope button:

At vault root the button always shows the globe icon — the scope is vault-wide there by default and cannot be changed (root already covers the whole vault).

Tag chips

When notes in the current view (or the whole vault, depending on settings) have tags or categories in their frontmatter, clickable tag chips appear below the search bar. Clicking a chip sets it as the search query; clicking again clears it.

Sorting

Select a sort option at the top of the + menu — or enable the sort button (↑↓) in Settings → Toolbar. While the toolbar sort button is enabled, the sort entries are hidden from the + menu automatically, so they never appear twice. The active sort is marked with a checkmark. Sort state is per view session; the default is set in plugin settings.

View modes

The view toggle cycles through three modes:

• List — cards (or, with the compact card style, flat rows with separator lines) showing title, date, category, preview and thumbnail
• Grid — square image tiles, two or more per row depending on width
• Widescreen — one note per row with a full-width 16:9 image

The choice is remembered per folder: switch the photography folder to grid and it stays grid, while other folders keep their own view. Folders without an explicit choice use the Default view from settings. In the Favorites and Recently opened views the toggle changes the global default.

Actions via + button

• Favorites — shows all favorited notes
• Recently opened — shows the last N modified notes vault-wide
• New document — creates a note in the current folder
• Create folder — creates a new subfolder

Toolbar buttons

The buttons between the search bar and the + button are configurable via Settings → Toolbar. Available actions: Sort, View toggle (list/grid/widescreen), New document, Create folder, Favorites, Recently opened, Open settings. By default only the view toggle is enabled.

Actions via long-press / right-click on a note

• Add / remove favorite — sets favorite: true in frontmatter
• Rename — rename the file
• Move to folder — opens a searchable folder picker to move the note
• Create folder — creates a new subfolder in the current location
• Archive — moves the note to the configured archive folder
• Open in new tab — opens the note in a new Obsidian tab
• Delete — moves the note to trash

Actions via long-press / right-click on a folder

• New note here — creates a note directly inside that folder
• Create folder — creates a subfolder inside it
• Rename — rename the folder
• Archive — moves the folder to the configured archive folder
• Open in new tab — opens the folder in a new Visual Explorer tab
• Delete — moves the folder and all its contents to trash

Settings backup

Under Settings → Visual Explorer → Backup:

• Export settings — writes all plugin settings to visual-explorer-settings.json in the vault root. This file survives uninstalling the plugin (which deletes its own data) and syncs along with the rest of the vault.
• Import settings — reads that file back and applies it, useful after reinstalling the plugin or setting it up on another device.

Settings

Toolbar

Each toolbar button can be individually shown or hidden in settings: Sort, View toggle, New document, Create folder, Favorites, Recently opened, Open settings.

Menu content

Each entry in the + menu can be individually shown or hidden in settings: Sort, View toggle, Favorites, Recently opened, New document, Create folder, Open settings. An entry is hidden automatically while its toolbar button is enabled.

Image support

The plugin extracts the first image from each note and supports both formats:

![[Files/image.png]]        (Obsidian wiki-link style)
![](Files/image.png)        (Standard Markdown style)

URL-encoded filenames (e.g. image%20135.png) are decoded automatically.

Frontmatter support

The plugin reads the following frontmatter fields:

---
date: 2024-10-13 14:57:15
created: 2024-10-13 14:57:07
categories:
  - Photography
tags:
  - journal
favorite: true
---

• date or created → displayed as the note date, and used for "Created" sort ordering
• categories or tags → first value displayed as #category; both are also used for tag chips and search filtering
• favorite: true → note is marked with ★ and appears in the Favorites view (also usable by Dataview and other plugins)

Building from source

Requirements: Node.js v18+, npm

git clone https://github.com/Sh3llingFord/visual-explorer.git
cd visual-explorer
npm install --save-dev typescript esbuild obsidian@latest
node esbuild.config.mjs

Releases are built automatically via GitHub Actions on every push to main.

License

MIT