Explorer Plugin

A file‑explorer view for Obsidian that displays folder contents directly inside the editor pane, allowing you to navigate notes without relying on the sidebar.

Features

• Card and list views for browsing folder contents
• Navigate folders directly from within notes
• Built-in support for folder notes
• Sorting by name, creation date, or modification time
• No coding required (Optional GUI-based configuration for explorer code blocks)
• Fast, scoped search within the current folder (no vault-wide queries)
• Pagination for large folders
• Strong mobile support
• Built-in RTL support (Hebrew and Arabic)

Usage

Add an explorer code block to any note:

```explorer

```

This will display the contents of the current folder with default settings.

Example

Card View

List View

Settings

Dark Mode

Configuration

While the plugin works best with the GUI settings pane, if you prefer - You can customize the view by adding settings to the code block:

```explorer
sortBy: "newest"
view: "cards"
depth: 2
pageSize: 12
```

Who This Plugin Is Designed For

Explorer is built for people who organize their notes primarily using traditional folders.

If your workflow is folder-centric, this plugin lets you:

• Navigate folders from inside a note, without relying on the sidebar
• Open a folder note and immediately browse its subfolders and files
• Move through your vault in a familiar, file-system-style way

The goal is fast, intuitive within-folder navigation, similar to how you’d browse files in Finder or Explorer, but embedded directly in your notes.

What This Plugin Does Not Try to Do

Explorer is not a general-purpose query engine. Explorer works best with traditional folder-based vaults structure, rather then flat ones.

It intentionally does not:

• Perform vault-wide queries
• Build complex tag- or metadata-based views
• Replace tools like Dataview or Obsidian Bases
• Optimize for flat, tag-driven, or database-style vault structures

If your vault is mostly flat, heavily tag-based, or relies on complex query logic, you’ll likely be better served by existing query tools.

Download

clone repo for mac or linux:

git clone https://github.com/manemajef/obsidian-explorer "/path/to/your/vault/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-explorer"

for windows:

git clone https://github.com/manemajef/obsidian-explorer "C:\Path\To\Your\Vault\.obsidian\plugins\obsidian-explorer"

Activate plugins

• Open Obsidian → Settings → Community plugins
• Turn on “Explorer”

Settings

Per-block overrides (inside the explorer code block)

You can override these settings per block. Keys not listed here are ignored.

Setting	Values
sortBy	newest, oldest, edited, name
view	cards, list
depth	0-10
pageSize	6-100
onlyNotes	true, false
showFolders	true, false
cardExt	folder, ctime, mtime, desc, none, default
showNotes	true, false

View Modes

• Cards: Grid of cards showing file name, extension, and metadata
• List: Simple bulleted list of files

Folder Notes

• autumaticly creates a folder note if missing as path/to/foldername/foldername.md
• If foldernotes exist, it dosnt ovverride them
• Plays well with Obsidian Folder Note Plugin, but works without it as well

Search

The search bar supports special prefixes. Use the search icon in the top bar to toggle it.

• Normal text: Search by filename
• #tag: Search by tags in frontmatter
• @name: Search only folder notes

Folder Notes

The plugin recognizes folder notes (files named foldername/foldername.md) and:

• Uses them for folder navigation
• Shows them in breadcrumbs
• Filters them correctly from file listings

Pinned Files

Files with pin: true or fav: true in frontmatter are shown at the top with a heart icon.

RTL Support

Automatically detects Hebrew/Arabic text and adjusts breadcrumb icons accordingly.

Development

Building

npm install
npm run build

Development Mode

npm run dev

License

MIT