At People

A lightweight Obsidian plugin that lets you mention people with @, just like you would in a chat or social media. Type @ followed by a name, pick from the suggestions, and a wiki-link is inserted automatically.

Features

• Smart fuzzy search — finds people even with partial input, typos in word order, or accent differences
  • "john" matches John Doe
  • "jose" matches José García
  • "jd" matches John Doe (initials)
  • "doe jo" matches John Doe (multi-word)
• Frontmatter aliases — match people by nicknames or alternate names defined in their YAML frontmatter (opt-in)
• Backlink-based ranking — people you reference often appear higher in suggestions, with a slight recency boost for recently edited notes
• Link selected text — select any text, run the command "At-People: Link selected text to person" from the palette, and convert it into a person link instantly. Assign a hotkey (e.g. Ctrl+Shift+A) for even faster linking.
• Dismiss with Escape — press Esc to dismiss suggestions; they won't reappear until you type a new @
• Auto-create files — optionally create person files and folders on the fly when selecting a suggestion
• Flexible folder modes — store people as flat files, per-person folders, or grouped by last name

Installation

From Community Plugins

1. Open At People in the Obsidian plugin directory, or go to Settings > Community plugins and search for "At People"
2. Click Install, then Enable

Manual

1. Download the latest release from Releases
2. Extract to <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/at-people/
3. Reload Obsidian and enable the plugin in Settings > Community plugins

Important: file naming

By default, person files must start with @ in their filename:

People/
  @John Doe.md
  @Sarah Connor.md

The @ prefix clearly distinguishes person notes from regular notes in your vault.

If your people files don't use @ (e.g. you already have a folder of contacts named John Doe.md), you can disable Require @ prefix in settings. The plugin will then treat every .md file inside your people folder — including subfolders — as a person.

Warning: with the prefix disabled, make sure your people folder contains only person files. Any .md file in it will appear in suggestions.

Configuration

People folder

Set the folder where your person files live (e.g. People/, Contacts/, Reference/People/). The plugin scans this folder and all subfolders for person files.

Explicit links

By default, the plugin inserts simple links:

[[@John Doe]]

Enable Explicit links to include the full path:

[[People/@John Doe.md|@John Doe]]

Auto-create files

When enabled, selecting a suggestion automatically creates the person file (and any necessary folders) in your configured people folder. When disabled, the plugin inserts the link but you need to create the file yourself.

Tip: If you use Templater, you can assign a template to your people folder in Templater's settings (Folder Templates). Every new person file created by At People will then be pre-filled with your template automatically.

Folder mode

Choose how person files are organized:

Mode	Structure	Example link
Default	One file per person	[[People/@John Doe.md|@John Doe]]
Per Person	A folder per person (for related notes)	[[People/@John Doe/@John Doe.md|@John Doe]]
Per Lastname	Grouped by last name	[[People/Doe/@John Doe.md|@John Doe]]

Per Person and Per Lastname modes require Explicit links to be enabled.

Note on last names: the plugin takes the last word of the name as the last name. "Charles Le Fabre" becomes "Fabre", not "Le Fabre".

Include aliases

Disabled by default. When enabled, the plugin reads the aliases field from each person file's YAML frontmatter and includes them in the search. For example, if @María García.md contains:

---
aliases:
  - Mary
  - mamá
---

Typing @Mary or @mamá will suggest María García. The suggestion shows the matched alias so you know why it appeared (e.g. María García (via Mary)). The inserted link always points to the canonical person name.

Require @ prefix

Enabled by default. When enabled, only files starting with @ are recognized as people. When disabled, all .md files in the people folder are treated as people. See file naming for details.

How ranking works

Results are ranked by combining three factors: how closely the query matches the name (with a slight preference for shorter, more precise matches), how often the person is referenced across your vault, and a light recency boost for recently edited person notes. Frequently mentioned people naturally rise to the top, while still respecting the relevance of your current query.

Conflicts

Some plugins conflict with the @ symbol. Check the known plugin conflicts to see if yours is listed.

Comparison

	At People	At Symbol Linking
Size	~25 KB	~145 KB
Focus	People only	Multiple entity types
Multi-symbol support	@ only	@, $, etc. mapped to different folders
Alias support	Yes (frontmatter)	Yes
Fuzzy search	Accent-insensitive, multi-word, initials	Standard
Backlink ranking	Yes	No
File templates	No	Yes

Choose At People if you want a fast, focused solution for person linking. Choose At Symbol Linking if you need broader symbol-to-folder mapping.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please open an issue first to discuss major changes.

Contributors

Originally created by saibotsivad, who generously transferred maintenance in October 2025 when the original repository was archived.

• saibotsivad — Original author and creator
• ph4wks — Folder mode variations and auto-file creation
• hExPY — Additional enhancements
• backmind — Current maintainer: fuzzy search, accent-insensitive matching, backlink ranking (v1.1.0+)

License

Published under the MIT License.