Obsidian Regex Replace

Safely clean up Markdown in Obsidian with live previews, match highlighting, and reusable multi-step pipelines.

Preview every change before it touches your note. Run a one-off replacement or save a complete cleanup workflow for PDFs, AI-generated text, and Markdown.

Why Regex Replace?

Capability	Obsidian's built-in replace	Regex Replace
Regular expressions and capture groups	—	✓
Before/after preview	—	✓
Match highlighting	—	✓
Replace within a selection	—	✓
Reusable multi-step cleanup pipelines	—	✓
Import regex-pipeline rulesets	—	✓

Everything runs locally in your vault. The plugin does not send note content to external services.

Features

• Regular Expression Support: Full JavaScript regex syntax including capture groups ($1, $2, etc.)
• Real-time Preview: See matches highlighted before replacing
• Match Highlighting: Visual diff showing before/after changes
• Regex Flags: Toggle global (g), case-insensitive (i), and multiline (m) flags
• Selection Mode: Replace only within selected text
• Pattern History: Save and reuse recent search patterns
• Pipeline Rulesets: Save reusable multi-step rulesets and apply them in sequence, with a step-by-step preview — and import existing regex-pipeline rulesets
• Dark/Light Theme: Optimized for both Obsidian themes

Popular cleanup recipes

Copy a search and replacement into Regex Replace, review the preview, and apply it only when the result is correct for your note.

Cleanup	Search	Replace	Flags
Collapse repeated spaces	{2,}		g
Remove trailing whitespace	[ \t]+$	(empty)	gm
Collapse 3+ blank lines	\n{3,}	\n\n	g
Change H2 headings to H3	^##	###	gm
Convert ISO dates to day/month/year	(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2})	$3/$2/$1	g
Remove Markdown bold markers	\*\*([^*]+)\*\*	$1	g
Convert simple wiki links to Markdown links	`[[([^]	]+)]]`	[$1]($1.md)

[!CAUTION] A regular expression can match more text than intended. Check the highlighted preview before applying a replacement, especially with broad patterns.

Installation

From Obsidian Community Plugins (Recommended)

1. Open Settings → Community plugins in Obsidian.
2. Select Browse and search for Regex Replace.
3. Select Install, then Enable.

Manual Installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release
2. Create a folder: <YourVault>/.obsidian/plugins/regex-replace/
3. Copy the downloaded files into this folder
4. Reload Obsidian and enable the plugin in Settings → Community Plugins

Usage

Open the replace dialog

• Hotkey: Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + H
• Command Palette: Cmd/Ctrl + P → "Open Regex Replace"

Preview before replacing

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Search Pattern:  [Enter regex pattern]      │
│ Replace With:    [Replacement text]         │
│                                             │
│ Flags: ☑ g (global)  ☐ i  ☐ m              │
│ ☐ Replace in selection only                 │
│                                             │
│ 3 match(es) found                           │
│                                             │
│ Before: Hello [world], hello [world]        │  ← Yellow highlight
│ After:  Hello [WORLD], hello [WORLD]        │  ← Green highlight
│                                             │
│ Matches (3):                                │
│ • "world" → "WORLD"                         │
│                                             │
│                    [Replace All] [Cancel]   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Regex examples

Use Case	Search Pattern	Replace	Result
Find numbers	\d+	[NUM]	abc123 → abc[NUM]
Date format	(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2})	$3/$2/$1	2024-12-08 → 08/12/2024
Remove extra spaces	\s+		Multiple spaces → single
Wiki to MD link	\[\[(.+?)\]\]	[$1]($1.md)	[[Note]] → [Note](Note.md)
Header H2 → H3	^##	###	## Title → ### Title
Remove bold	\*\*(.+?)\*\*	$1	**bold** → bold
Extract link text	\[(.+?)\]\((.+?)\)	$1: $2	[text](url) → text: url

Flags

Flag	Name	Description
g	Global	Replace all matches (not just the first)
i	Ignore Case	Case-insensitive matching
m	Multiline	^ and $ match line starts/ends

Capture groups

Use parentheses () to capture groups and reference them with $1, $2, etc.:

Search:  (\w+)@(\w+)\.com
Replace: User: $1, Domain: $2

Input:   test@example.com
Output:  User: test, Domain: example

Pipeline Rulesets

A ruleset is a named list of find/replace rules applied in sequence — each rule operates on the previous rule's output. Useful for repeatable, multi-step cleanups (e.g. normalize headers, then collapse whitespace, then fix links).

Defining a ruleset

In Settings → Regex Replace → Pipeline rulesets, click Add ruleset, name it, and write rules using regex-pipeline syntax (one rule per block):

"SEARCH"->"REPLACE"
"\s+"->" "
"##\s"gm->"### "

• Inline flags follow the search quote (e.g. "foo"gi->"bar"); without them, gm is used.
• Replacements may span multiple lines.

Applying a ruleset

• Command Palette: "Apply ruleset (pipeline)" → pick a ruleset → review the step-by-step preview (match count per rule) → Apply pipeline.
• A rule with an invalid regex is skipped and reported, never aborting the whole run.

Importing from regex-pipeline

Click Import from regex-pipeline to read every ruleset file in <vault>/.obsidian/regex-rulesets/ and convert it into a native ruleset.

Starter pipeline: clean pasted text

This ruleset removes trailing whitespace, reduces large blank gaps, and normalizes repeated spaces. Add it under Settings → Regex Replace → Pipeline rulesets, then preview it with Apply ruleset (pipeline).

"[ \\t]+$"gm->""
"\\n{3,}"g->"\\n\\n"
" {2,}"g->" "

Settings

Access via Settings → Regex Replace:

Setting	Description	Default
Default Flags	Pre-selected regex flags	g
Show Preview	Display before/after preview	true
History Limit	Max saved patterns	10
Pipeline rulesets	Add/edit/delete/import reusable rulesets	—

Development

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/bongho/obsidian-regex-replace.git

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build for development (watch mode)
npm run dev

# Build for production
npm run build

# Run tests
npx ts-node --transpile-only test.ts

Changelog

1.1.4

• Reposition the plugin around safe previews and reusable cleanup pipelines
• Add practical Markdown cleanup recipes and a built-in feature comparison
• Align package metadata and documentation with the 0BSD license

1.1.0

• Pipeline rulesets: save reusable multi-step rulesets, apply in sequence with step preview
• Import rulesets from the regex-pipeline plugin
• New command: "Apply ruleset (pipeline)"

1.0.0

• Initial release
• Regex find and replace with preview
• Real-time match highlighting
• Pattern history
• Selection-only mode

License

0BSD License — see LICENSE for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Support

If you find this plugin useful, consider:

• Starring the repository on GitHub
• Reporting issues or suggesting features
• Contributing code improvements

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Made with ❤️ for the Obsidian community