NoteAlong for Obsidian

Your NoteAlong lecture notes, in your vault, kept up to date.

NoteAlong turns lectures, YouTube videos and recordings into study notes with flashcards. This plugin pulls those notes into a folder of your vault as plain Markdown files, with their images, and keeps them in sync. It works on desktop and on iOS and Android.

What you get

• One Markdown file per note under NoteAlong/ (or a folder you choose), in the same folders you use in NoteAlong. Properties include the source, date, language and a link back to the note.
• Images from your notes in NoteAlong/_attachments/, linked with ordinary relative links (no remote URLs).
• Optional: the transcript, flashcards in Spaced Repetition format, and language versions of a note as Title (es).md.
• Sync on startup, on a timer, with the Sync now command or the ribbon button. The status bar shows the last sync.

Your edits are safe

• Write your own thoughts under My notes at the end of each file. Sync never touches that section.
• Properties and tags you add are kept. Spaced Repetition review data (<!--SR:…-->) is kept.
• If you edit the part NoteAlong wrote and the note then changes in NoteAlong, your file is left alone and the update is written next to it as Title (NoteAlong update).md.
• A sync only writes a file when something in it actually changes, so tools that sync your vault between devices see no needless edits.
• Rename or move a file in your vault and sync follows it. Delete it and it stays deleted (use Restore notes deleted from the vault to bring them back).
• A note deleted in NoteAlong keeps its file, marked notealong_deleted: <date>. You can choose to move such files to the trash instead.

Install

1. In Obsidian, open Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search for NoteAlong, select Install, then Enable.
2. Open Settings → NoteAlong and select Connect. NoteAlong opens in your browser; approve there and Obsidian finishes on its own, in the vault you connected from.
3. Didn't switch back? Paste the pairing code NoteAlong shows into Pairing code. You can also paste a personal access token from NoteAlong → Settings → Connections.

Each vault connects on its own: run Connect in every vault you want your notes in.

Manual install. Download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release, put them in <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/notealong/, then reload Obsidian and enable NoteAlong under Community plugins.

Beta versions. With the BRAT plugin, choose Add a beta plugin for testing and enter this repository's GitHub path. BRAT installs and updates pre-releases.

Requirements and disclosures

• Account required. You need a NoteAlong account (free to create). The plugin only shows notes you made in NoteAlong.

• Free. The plugin is free, and so is syncing. NoteAlong itself has a free plan and a paid plan; making new notes beyond the free plan's monthly allowance needs the paid plan. The plugin has no ads.

• Network use. The plugin talks only to the NoteAlong API at https://api.notealong.com (or the server you set under Advanced):

  • to trade a pairing code for an access token (POST /v1/integrations/pairing/exchange), sending the code and a label for the token: "Obsidian (your vault's name)";
  • to read which account is connected (GET /v1/export/whoami);
  • to fetch your notes as Markdown, page by page (GET /v1/export/changes);
  • to download the images in your notes (GET /v1/export/notes/<id>/attachments/<name>).

  Connect opens https://notealong.com in your browser with a one-time random value and your vault's name, so the link NoteAlong sends back opens this vault. Nothing is ever uploaded from your vault: the plugin only reads from NoteAlong.

• Data fetched. Your notes' titles, folder names, Markdown content, images, and (if enabled) transcripts, flashcards and language versions.

• No telemetry. The plugin collects no analytics and sends nothing about your vault's contents. The NoteAlong API records when your token was last used (shown in NoteAlong's settings). See the privacy policy.

• Credentials. The access token is read-only (it can only export your notes) and is stored in Obsidian's keychain (Settings → Keychain). Only if the keychain isn't available is it kept in the plugin's data file in your vault. Revoke it any time in NoteAlong → Settings → Connections; Disconnect removes it from Obsidian.

• Files. The plugin writes only inside the folder you choose (default NoteAlong/). It reads the Markdown files in that folder to find notes you moved. It never reads or changes files outside that folder.

Development

npm install
npm run dev        # watch build to main.js
npm run build      # typecheck + production build (main.js)
npm test           # unit tests (vitest), against an in-memory mock of the API
npm run lint       # eslint with eslint-plugin-obsidianmd

Releases are built by GitHub Actions from a tag equal to the version in manifest.json (no v prefix); main.js, manifest.json and styles.css are attached to the release.

License

MIT