Outlook Event Notes

An Obsidian plugin that creates notes from Microsoft Outlook meetings, appointments, and recurring events by dragging and dropping .msg files onto a ribbon icon.

Based on Outlook Meeting Notes by David Ingerslev. This fork adds support for recurring events, opening existing notes, and other improvements.

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Features

• Drag & drop a meeting or appointment from Outlook Classic onto the ribbon icon → a note is instantly created (or opened if it already exists)
• Recurring events — detects recurring .msg files and prompts you to confirm the occurrence date before creating the note
• Fully customisable filename pattern and note template using Mustache syntax
• No Microsoft 365 / Graph API dependency — works entirely from .msg files
• YAML frontmatter sanitisation — strips characters that would break Obsidian properties

Installation

Community Plugins (coming soon)

Search for Outlook Event Notes in Obsidian → Settings → Community Plugins.

Manual installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release
2. Copy them into your vault at .obsidian/plugins/outlook-event-notes/
3. Enable the plugin in Obsidian → Settings → Community Plugins

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Usage

Drag and drop a meeting or appointment from the Outlook Classic desktop calendar onto the plugin ribbon icon. The plugin will:

1. Parse the .msg file
2. For recurring events, ask you to confirm the occurrence date (defaults to today)
3. Create a new note — or open the existing one if a note for that event already exists

You can also save a .msg file from Outlook (e.g. a meeting invitation received by email) and drag-drop the saved file onto the icon.

Recurring events

If the dropped .msg represents part of a recurring series, the plugin shows a modal asking for the occurrence date in YYYY-MM-DD format. Press Enter to accept the default (today), adjust the date if needed, or cancel to abort note creation.

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Settings

Folder location

The folder where new notes are created. Created automatically if it does not exist (supports subfolders like Meetings/2026).

Filename pattern

Uses Mustache syntax. Default:

{{#helper_dateFormat}}{{apptStartWhole}}|YYYY-MM-DD_HH-mm_ss{{/helper_dateFormat}}_{{subject}}

Produces filenames like 2026-03-11_19-00_00_Discuss documentation.

You can use / to create subfolders:

{{#helper_dateFormat}}{{apptStartWhole}}|YYYY/MM/YYYY-MM-DD_HH-mm_ss{{/helper_dateFormat}} {{subject}}

produces 2026/03/2026-03-11_19-00_00_Discuss documentation

Invalid character substitute

Characters that are invalid in filenames (/ * " \ < > : | ?) are replaced with this value. Blank = remove them.

Template

Fully customisable Mustache template. All .msg fields are available, plus the helper fields and functions below.

YAML values are sanitised automatically to strip characters such as <, > and *, keeping the generated frontmatter valid even when invite data contains those symbols.

Default template

---
title: {{subject}}
subtitle: meeting notes
created: {{#helper_dateFormat}}{{apptStartWhole}}|YYYY-MM-DD_HH-mm-ss{{/helper_dateFormat}}
meeting: 'true'
meeting-location: {{apptLocation}}
meeting-recipients:
{{#recipients}}
  - {{name}}
{{/recipients}}
meeting-invite: {{body}}
---

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Template helpers

Helper fields

Field	Description
{{helper_currentDT}}	Date/time the file was dropped, in ISO format (e.g. 2026-03-11T19:00:00-05:00)

Use helper_dateFormat to reformat it:

{{#helper_dateFormat}}{{helper_currentDT}}|YYYY-MM-DD_HH-mm_ss{{/helper_dateFormat}}

Helper functions

helper_dateFormat

Formats a date using moment.js. Separate the field and format with |.

{{#helper_dateFormat}}{{apptStartWhole}}|YYYY-MM-DD_HH-mm_ss{{/helper_dateFormat}}

produces 2026-03-11_19-00_00

{{#helper_dateFormat}}{{apptStartWhole}}|L LT{{/helper_dateFormat}}

Uses Obsidian's display language locale (e.g. 11/03/2026 19:00 in English GB, 03/11/2026 7:00 PM in English US).

helper_firstWord

Returns only the first word of a field — useful for recording first names only:

meeting-recipients:
{{#recipients}}
  - {{#helper_firstWord}}{{name}}{{/helper_firstWord}}
{{/recipients}}

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Credits

• Original plugin: Outlook Meeting Notes by David Ingerslev
• msgreader — .msg file parsing
• mustache.js — template rendering
• mustache-validator — template validation

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License

ISC — see LICENSE.