🕐 Recent Notes for Dataview

An Obsidian plugin that tracks your recently opened notes and lets you display them anywhere using Dataview queries.

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✨ Features

• 📋 Tracks recently opened notes automatically in the background
• 🔢 Configurable count — choose to show 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 recent notes
• 🚫 Folder exclusions — block entire folders (and their subfolders) from being tracked
• ⚡ DataviewJS integration — expose your recent notes to any Dataview query
• 💾 Persistent — recent notes survive Obsidian restarts
• 📱 Mobile compatible — works on Obsidian mobile too

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📋 Requirements

• Obsidian v0.15.0 or higher
• Dataview community plugin (for query display)

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🚀 Installation

From Community Plugins (Recommended)

1. Open Obsidian → Settings → Community Plugins
2. Disable Restricted Mode if prompted
3. Click Browse and search for "Recent Notes for Dataview"
4. Click Install, then Enable

Manual Installation

1. Download main.js and manifest.json from the latest release
2. Create the folder .obsidian/plugins/recent-notes-dataview/ in your vault
3. Place both files inside it
4. Go to Settings → Community Plugins → hit Refresh → enable the plugin

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🧩 Usage

Step 1 — Let the plugin track notes

Just open notes normally. Every .md file you open is silently added to your recent list (unless it's inside an excluded folder).

Step 2 — Paste the DataviewJS snippet

In any note (e.g. your Dashboard), create a dataviewjs block:

// ── Recent Notes (powered by Recent Notes for Dataview) ──
const rn = app.plugins.plugins["recent-notes-dataview"];
if (!rn) { dv.paragraph('⚠ Plugin not enabled.'); }
else {
  const files = rn.getRecentFiles();
  if (files.length === 0) {
    dv.paragraph("No recent notes yet — open a few notes first!");
  } else {
    dv.table(["Note", "Modified", "Folder"],
      files.map(f => [
        dv.fileLink(f.path),
        new Date(f.stat.mtime).toLocaleString(),
        f.parent?.path || "/"
      ])
    );
  }
}

This renders a live table with clickable note links, last-modified timestamps, and folder paths.

💡 You can also copy this snippet directly from the plugin's Settings page.

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⚙️ Settings

Navigate to Settings → Recent Notes for Dataview

Setting	Description	Default
Number of recent notes	How many notes to show (slider 5–10)	5
Excluded Folders	Folders whose notes are never tracked	(none)

Excluded Folders

• Type a path like Private or Work/Drafts and click ＋ Add Folder
• Folder input autocompletes from your vault
• Subfolders are excluded automatically — adding Private blocks Private/Journal/, Private/Archive/, etc.
• Notes already tracked inside a newly excluded folder disappear immediately from Dataview output — no restart required
• Paths are case-sensitive on Mac/Linux

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🖼 Screenshots

Dataview Table

Settings Page

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🛠 Development

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/bigelephant67/recent-notes-dataview
cd recent-notes-dataview

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Development mode (watches for changes)
npm run dev

# Production build
npm run build

Copy main.js and manifest.json into your vault's plugin folder to test.

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🤝 Contributing

Pull requests and issues are welcome!

• 🐛 Bug reports → Open an issue
• 💡 Feature requests → Start a discussion
• 💬 Community chat → Discord

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📄 License

MIT © Fat Elephant aka Waghmare

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☕ Support

If this plugin saves you time, consider starring ⭐ the repo — it helps others find it!