dropit for Obsidian

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What you send from your phone, your browser or your terminal lands in your vault as notes — titled, images embedded, sources linked. And anything in your vault goes out with a right-click.

Desktop and mobile. Part of dropit, a private pipe between your own devices.

_{Shown: Lonely Planet pages · a NASA photograph (public domain).}

What it's like

Somewhere else, you…	In your vault, a few seconds later
Share a photo from your iPhone	A note named 10-04 15.30 IMG_2041, the photo embedded, saved where your attachments go
Send a web page from Chrome	[The article's title](link) with the author's summary as a quote — not a bare URL
Select a paragraph in the browser and send it	The paragraph, and under it — [Page title](link), so you always know where it came from
Send some text and three screenshots at once	One note: the text on top, the three images below
Type dropit send "call the bank" in a terminal	A note that says call the bank
Close the laptop for a weekend	Everything sent meanwhile, the moment you open Obsidian again — nothing missing, nothing twice

And the other way: right-click a note, a PDF or a few images in the file list → Send to dropit, and they're on your phone.

Where things land

Pick once in Settings → dropit → Write items to:

Choice	What you get
A new note for each (default)	One note per delivery in a folder you choose (Inbox), named by time and what it's about
The end of one note	Everything appended to a single note (Inbox/dropit.md), each under a time line
Today's daily note	Appended to today's daily note — your folder, date format and template from the Daily notes plugin; Templater templates are handed to Templater

Files — images, videos, PDFs — are saved where Obsidian puts attachments (Settings → Files and links) and embedded with your own link style, wikilinks or Markdown.

A new note for each

---
kind: url
source: chrome-extension
created: 2026-10-04T07:30:00.000Z
dropit_seq: 42
---

[How Airmail Worked](https://example.com/airmail)

> A short history of the red-and-blue envelope.

The file name is the time plus what it's about: 10-04 15.30 How Airmail Worked. A link without a title becomes example.com/airmail; text becomes its first line; a file its own name. Things sent together share one note — text on top, files embedded below.

The end of one note, or today's daily note

**10-04 15:30** · ios-shortcut
![[IMG_2041.jpeg]]

**10-04 15:42** · chrome-extension
A paragraph worth keeping.

— [Page title](https://example.com/page)

Note: the daily note is the one for the day the item is written. Items caught up after a few days offline go into today's note, not the day they were sent.

Sending from your vault

Where	What goes out
Select text in a note → right-click → Send to dropit	The selected text (a lone link is sent as a link)
Right-click a file in the file list → Send to dropit	A note goes as its Markdown text; any other file as the file itself
Select several files → right-click → Send N files to dropit	Up to 10 files, arriving together as one delivery
Command palette: dropit: Send current note · dropit: Send selection	The same, from the keyboard — bind them to hotkeys under Settings → Hotkeys

A note goes as its text, front matter included; images embedded in it aren't sent along — select them in the file list too. What you send from this vault is never written back into it.

The status bar

One glance tells you the state; click it to sync now.

Shows	Means
● dropit	Receiving in real time (hover for the days left of a trial)
◌ dropit	Connecting
↻ dropit	Syncing
○ dropit	No real-time on your plan right now: syncs when Obsidian opens or you come back to it
○ dropit · offline	Disconnected — reconnecting by itself
⚠ dropit	Something failed — hover for why; it tries again by itself (after about 5 s, 15 s, then every minute — later if the server asks for that). If this vault was removed from your account, it stops trying until you pair again or click to sync
dropit · not paired	Click to set it up

When items arrive, one notice says how many — click it to open the last one.

Nothing missed, nothing twice

• Coming back catches up. Open Obsidian, or switch back to it, and whatever arrived meanwhile is written.
• A flaky network is ridden out. A connection dropped on the way (a proxy, patchy Wi-Fi) is tried again before it counts; a failed sync retries on its own.
• A file that won't download doesn't block the rest. A line takes its place: ⚠️ report.pdf (820 KB) couldn't be downloaded: … Settings → dropit → Pull again tries once more.
• Pull again (Settings → dropit): everything, the last N items, or the last N days. What's already in the vault is skipped, failed downloads are fetched again. With A new note for each, a note you deleted comes back; in the other two modes, what you deleted stays deleted.
• A newly joined device starts with what's sent after it joined; Pull again fetches what came before, for as long as your plan keeps items.

Run your own command after each item

Settings → dropit → Run a command after receiving picks any Obsidian command — a QuickAdd macro, a Templater script, another plugin's action. It runs once for each item, after the item is in the vault.

• Delivery never depends on it. The item is written first; the command runs afterwards, once, with no retry.
• One item at a time, a second apart.
• dropit defines the format; your script is yours. The plugin does nothing with the content beyond writing it.

Your script reads the current item from app.plugins.plugins.dropit.received:

{
  v: 1,                      // format version
  seq: 42,                   // the item's number, increasing
  kind: 'image',             // 'text' · 'url' · 'image' · 'video' · 'file' · …
  source: 'web',             // where it was sent from
  created: '2026-09-29T07:30:00.000Z',
  batch: { id: 'b3k9x0', index: 2, count: 3 },   // null when sent on its own
  text: '',                  // the text or link; '' for files
  meta: { filename: 'budget.png', mime: 'image/png' },   // also title / description for links;
                             // from: { url, title? }, the page it was sent from (browser extension)
  note: 'Inbox/09-29 15.30 Slides for the 3pm meeting.md',   // where it was written
  files: ['Inbox/budget.png'],                   // files saved to the vault for it
}

app.plugins.plugins.dropit.recent holds the last 20. From another plugin or a startup script you can also listen directly — every item, no command needed:

app.workspace.on('dropit:received', (item) => { /* same object */ });

For example, a QuickAdd macro's user script:

module.exports = async ({ app }) => {
  const item = app.plugins.plugins.dropit.received;
  if (item.kind !== 'url') return;
  // …your own processing
};

Treat the content as untrusted input. Anyone holding a send-only token for your account — an old phone, a leaked shortcut — can put anything into it. Don't eval it, and never build a shell command line out of it: pass it to a program on stdin or in a file. The object is frozen, so a script can't change what the next one sees.

Account, plan and network

• A dropit account is required. Creating one is free, in the plugin (First time using dropit? → Create a new account) or at dropit.smart-kits.xyz. It asks for no name, email or phone number.
• Free to use; an optional paid plan raises the limits. Everything described here works on the free plan, within its limits: 30 items a day, files up to 5 MB, items kept for 1 day, 3 devices, and real-time delivery for the first 10 days after signing up. After that, new items come in when Obsidian opens, when you come back to its window, or when you click Sync now.
• Payment. The paid plan costs $1.90 a month, $9.90 a year, or $29.90 once for lifetime (limited), plus local tax: 300 items a day, files up to 100 MB, 10 devices, items kept 10 days, real-time delivery always on. You pay on the website (pricing), never inside the plugin, and the plugin works the same either way. Checkout asks for an email, where the receipt goes. Cancel anytime; any payment can be refunded within 7 days (terms).
• Network use. The plugin talks to one service, the dropit server, over HTTPS and a WebSocket, to send and receive your items. No telemetry, no ads. Details in Privacy.
• Files. It reads and writes only inside this vault. It doesn't scan your notes: only when an item comes back a second time (Pull again, or a sync that was cut short), it looks up the dropit_seq (and other dropit_…) fields in each note's front matter through Obsidian's metadata cache, so the item isn't written twice. It never reads note bodies for this.
• Clipboard. Add a device → Generate a pairing code writes the code to the clipboard so you can paste it. The plugin never reads the clipboard.

Set up

1. Install. Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search dropit, Install. Or download it from dropit.smart-kits.xyz and unzip it into <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/, or clone it there:

   git clone https://github.com/smart-kits/dropit-obsidian.git "<your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/dropit"
   

   Then Settings → Community plugins → enable dropit.

2. Join. Settings → dropit opens on Join with a pairing code. On a device you already use, show a code (web inbox: Devices; terminal: dropit code), type its 6 characters, press Join. Your first device ever? First time using dropit? → Create a new account.

3. Add your other devices from here. Settings → dropit → Add a device → Generate a pairing code: type the code on the new device, or scan the QR code with its camera. The code is copied for you, and the page notices when the device has joined.

Using an AI coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor…)? Paste this and it installs the plugin for you:

Install the dropit plugin into my Obsidian vault by following
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smart-kits/dropit-obsidian/main/AGENTS.md
Ask me which vault and before creating an account, and never show or commit my token.

Settings

Setting	What it does
(top line)	The connection state and your account: plan · devices · space · how long items are kept. Sync now next to it
Write items to · Folder · Note	Where items land (above)
Run a command after receiving	Your command, or none
Pull again	Everything · the last N items · the last N days
Add a device	A pairing code and its QR code
Devices	Every device on your account; Remove stops one right away
Feedback	Report a problem (a new public issue with your versions filled in) · Source code
Advanced → Server address	Only if you were given another address; the built-in one is always tried last
Advanced → Unpair	Removes this vault from your account (freeing its device slot) and forgets its sign-in; your settings stay

The interface follows Obsidian's language: English, or Simplified Chinese when Obsidian is set to Chinese.

When something goes wrong

You see	It means	Do this
⚠ dropit · Can't reach the server	The network or a proxy is dropping connections	Usually nothing — it retries. If it stays, check the proxy, or let it connect to dropit directly
Invalid token · This device was removed	This vault was removed from your account	Join again with a new code
Device limit reached	Your plan's device count is used up	Remove a device you no longer use (Settings → dropit → Devices)
Pairing code expired	Codes last 5 minutes and work once	Generate a new one
Real-time trial ended	New accounts get real-time for a while; after that it syncs when you open or come back to Obsidian	Nothing to fix — click the status bar to sync any time
⚠️ … couldn't be downloaded in a note	The file didn't come down this time	Settings → dropit → Pull again

Anything else: Settings → dropit → Feedback → Report a problem (a public issue). For questions about your account you'd rather not post publicly, email support@dropit.smart-kits.xyz.

Privacy

• The sign-in is stored in this plugin's data.json inside your vault. If you sync or publish your vault, exclude .obsidian/plugins/dropit/data.json. Unpair clears it. A synced vault that takes data.json along (Obsidian Sync with community plugin settings, iCloud, Syncthing, Git) also makes every copy receive as the same device, so an item can be written once by each copy. Let one copy receive: keep data.json out of the sync.
• Text from other devices and web pages is never run as code. If Templater is set to run new notes as templates (Trigger Templater on new file creation), <% in what arrives is written with an invisible zero-width space after the <, so Templater doesn't see a command in it. It looks the same; the payload your command gets keeps the original.
• Each device has its own key and can be removed on its own; removing one frees its slot at once.
• Pairing this vault again (for example after reinstalling the plugin) takes the earlier pairing's place instead of using another slot. To recognize it, the plugin sends the key it had, if any, and a SHA-256 hash of a random ID. The ID is made the first time this vault joins dropit and kept in Obsidian's local storage for this vault on this device — not in data.json, and not synced with the vault — so it outlasts a reinstall. Nothing about your computer or phone goes into it, only the hash leaves the device, and it is not a credential.
• The plugin talks to one service, the dropit server, to send and receive your items. What it keeps, for how long and who can see it: Privacy.

Development

ln -s "$(pwd)" "<your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/dropit"   # edit here, reload in Obsidian
node test.cjs                                             # no dependencies
brew install gitleaks && git config core.hooksPath .githooks   # block tokens from being committed

Commit messages are in English. Docs come in pairs — please update both README.md and README.zh-CN.md.

License

MIT