External Browser for Obsidian

Choose which web browser opens HTTP and HTTPS links in the Obsidian desktop app, independently of the operating system's default browser.

Status: Public beta 0.2.3. Tested successfully on Windows with Chrome as the primary browser and Edge for Alt-click. Linux and macOS remain untested. Submitted for Community directory review; not yet approved.

Features

• Choose Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, a custom executable, or the system default browser.
• Optionally use a second browser when holding Alt, Ctrl, Shift, or Meta while clicking a link.
• Open web links with the chosen browser using a process launch without a shell.
• Catch both HTML anchor clicks and Obsidian's window.open() link handling shortly after user clicks.
• Use Command palette → External Browser: Test primary browser (open example.com) or Test alternative browser (open example.com) to diagnose browser launch separately from click handling.
• Provide Windows, Linux, and macOS browser launchers (so far tested only on Windows).
• If launching fails, attempt to open the link in the system default browser.
• Internal Obsidian links and non-HTTP(S) links are not intercepted.

Beta installation

To install outside the Community directory, install BRAT, select Add a beta plugin for testing, and enter Radouch/obsidian-external-browser. Alternatively, download both main.js and manifest.json from the GitHub Releases page and follow the manual installation instructions below.

Report bugs through GitHub Issues. Include your Obsidian version, OS, view mode, browser configuration and the result of both diagnostic commands.

Limitations

• The plugin intercepts HTML links and window.open() calls made shortly after a user click (including some Live Preview links). In particular, links opened through other application APIs, keyboard-only triggers, or custom plugin handlers may remain unaffected. The window.open() interception is limited to 1.5 seconds after mouse input; other plugins using that API may conflict, and unrelated calls during that interval may be affected.
• Browser installation detection is best-effort. On Windows standard installation locations are tried; on Linux executable names in PATH are tried; on macOS the system open -a launcher is used.
• Launching a process does not guarantee the browser subsequently loads the page. Some failure modes may not be detected.
• Custom browser paths accept an executable or command only, not extra command-line arguments. The URL is appended as one argument.
• Using Alt/Ctrl/Meta/Shift may interact with Obsidian's own modified-click behavior; a modifier cannot route links when Obsidian treats that modified-click as editor selection instead of activating a link. Verify your preferred modifier in Reading mode and Live Preview.

Troubleshooting

If a link still opens in the system browser, run the primary-browser test from the Command palette. If that opens Chrome/Edge, the browser executable works and the link activation is bypassing the interceptor. In that case, report the Obsidian version, view mode (Reading/Live Preview/Source), link markup, and whether the link is in the note body or elsewhere. If the test fails, look at the developer console for the launch error (Ctrl+Shift+I on Windows/Linux).

To update a manual install, replace both main.js and manifest.json, then disable and re-enable the plugin (or restart Obsidian).

Development

Requires Node.js 22+ and npm.

npm ci
npm test
npm run build

The build produces main.js at the repository root.

Manual installation

1. Build the plugin.
2. Create <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/external-browser/.
3. Copy main.js and manifest.json to that folder.
4. In Obsidian, enable the plugin under Settings → Community plugins.
5. Open Settings → External Browser and select your browser.

To develop with automatic recompilation, run npm run dev, then reload the plugin in Obsidian after edits.

Security review and reproducible releases

The plugin launches browser executables via Node.js child_process.spawn with shell: false. This triggers an expected security disclosure in automated plugin reviews because the plugin starts external programs. The executable is chosen from supported browsers or the user-provided custom executable, and the HTTP(S) URL is passed as a separate argument without shell interpolation.

Dependencies are locked in package-lock.json, builds use npm ci, and release artifacts include GitHub build provenance attestations. Obsidian 1.13+ uses searchable declarative settings; older versions continue using the legacy settings UI.

Privacy and security

The plugin does not send telemetry or make its own network requests. Clicking a link sends that URL as a command-line argument to the configured browser; the browser itself handles the request. If you set a custom executable, you are responsible for trusting that program. The plugin only handles HTTP and HTTPS schemes and invokes executable commands without a shell.

Contributing

Please test on your operating system and report reproducible problems with Obsidian version, OS, and browser. Read CONTRIBUTING.md and CHANGELOG.md. The license is MIT (see LICENSE). This implementation does not copy code from the earlier Open Link With project.