Intuitive Graph Navigation

Make Obsidian's graph view easier to explore. Click a node and it stays highlighted with its connections until you press Escape, instead of the highlight disappearing as soon as your mouse moves.

Features

• Click mode. Clicking a node opens its note beside the graph and keeps the node and its connections highlighted until you press Escape or click another node.
• Follows your notes. Opening a note from the file explorer, a link or the quick switcher selects its node in the graph, as if you had clicked it.
• Hover labels. While a node is selected, hovering any other node shows its name exactly as it would look if clicked, and the label follows the node as the graph moves.
• Coloured connections. Lines from the highlighted node take the colour of the node at the other end, so you can see at a glance which groups it connects to. Lines blend smoothly back to the default colour when deselected.
• Group colour first. Nodes in a colour group keep their group colour when they are highlighted or open, instead of switching to the accent colour.
• Clear open-note ring. The ring Obsidian draws around the open note's node is black in light mode and white in dark mode.
• Camera follows. Selecting a node glides the graph so the node moves to the centre of the view.
• Pinned graph. Graph tabs are kept pinned so opening notes never replaces your graph.

Everything works in both the global graph and local graphs, and each feature can be turned off in settings.

Using it

Switch between Click mode and Hover mode (Obsidian's normal behaviour) using any of these:

• the mode label in the status bar (Graph: Click mode / Graph: Hover mode),
• the ribbon icon,
• the command Toggle hover / click mode (you can assign it a hotkey in Settings → Hotkeys).

In Click mode:

Action	Result
Click a node	Selects it and opens the note beside the graph
Ctrl/Cmd-click a node	Selects it and opens the note in a new tab or split, as Obsidian normally does
Hover a node	Shows its label without changing the selection
Escape	Clears the selection

The command Clear graph selection also clears the selection.

Tip: colour groups

Coloured connections and group colours are most useful with colour groups set up. In graph view, open the settings (gear icon) → Groups → New group, and give each group a query (for example tag:#person or path:Projects) and a colour.

Settings

Setting	What it does
Mode	Click mode or Hover mode.
Keep graph tabs pinned	Pins every global graph tab so opening notes never replaces it.
Select the open note	Opening a note selects its node, as if you had clicked it.
Hover highlight when nothing is selected	In Click mode, hovering still highlights connections while nothing is selected.
Hover name style	Show hovered names as the graph's own label, or as a tooltip by the cursor.
Black and white open-note ring	Black ring in light mode, white in dark mode, instead of the accent colour.
Group colour first	Grouped nodes keep their group colour when highlighted or open.
Colour connections by node	Lines from the highlighted node take the colour of the node at the other end.
Centre on selected node	In Click mode, the graph glides so the selected node moves to the centre.
Open notes beside the graph	Clicked notes open in another pane so the graph stays visible.

Compatibility

Obsidian doesn't offer an official API for customising the graph view, so this plugin works with the graph view's internal code. That code can change in any Obsidian update, which could stop some features working until the plugin is updated.

The plugin is written to fail safely: if something it expects isn't there, that feature simply does nothing, and disabling the plugin always restores Obsidian's normal graph.

If something stops working, please open an issue and include the output of the command Copy diagnostics (for troubleshooting): with the graph open, select a node, run the command, and paste what it copies. It describes the graph view's internals so the problem can be fixed quickly. It contains no note content beyond the names of the selected and hovered notes.

Installing

From Obsidian: open Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search for Intuitive Graph Navigation, then install and enable it.

Manually: download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/intuitive-graph-navigation/, then enable the plugin in Settings → Community plugins.

License

MIT © 2026 Gregory Jackson