Substack Clipper

Archive Substack posts as Obsidian-flavored Markdown with images, media, and threaded comments.

Features

• Saves any public Substack post as a Markdown note with YAML frontmatter
• Downloads images, videos, audio, podcast episodes, transcripts, and PDF attachments
• Fetches and renders threaded comments as a separate embeddable note
• Media files use ![[wikilink]] embeds for native Obsidian playback
• Converts Substack footnotes to standard [^N] Markdown footnotes
• Strips CDN URL prefixes for clean image references
• Handles paywalled posts gracefully (saves the available preview)
• Works on desktop and mobile

Installation

Install from community.obsidian.md

From Obsidian's settings or preferences:

1. Community Plugins > Browse
2. Search for "Substack Clipper"

Manually:

1. download the latest release archive
2. uncompress the downloaded archive
3. move the substack-clipper folder to /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/
4. Settings > Community plugins > reload Installed plugins
5. enable plugin

or:

1. download main.js, manifest.json & styles.css from the latest release
2. create a new folder /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/substack-clipper
3. move all 3 files to /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/substack-clipper
4. Settings > Community plugins > reload Installed plugins
5. enable plugin

Usage

1. Open the command palette (Ctrl/Cmd + P).
2. Run Clip substack post.
3. Paste a Substack post URL (must contain /p/ in the path).
4. The plugin fetches the post, downloads media, and creates the note.

Output structure

Substacks/
  alice/
    my-article.md
    my-article-comments.md
    my-article/
      image.jpg
      video.mp4
      podcast.mp3
      attachment.pdf

The main note includes frontmatter with title, subtitle, type, audience, date, comment count, and links to all media. Comments are embedded via ![[slug-comments]].

URI protocol

You can save a post directly via an obsidian:// URI without opening the command palette:

obsidian://substack-clipper?vault=MyVault&url=https://alice.substack.com/p/my-article

Parameter	Required	Description
vault	no	Target vault name (Obsidian prompts if omitted and multiple vaults exist)
url	yes	Full Substack post URL (must contain /p/)
open	no	true or false — override the "open after saving" setting

Spaces in vault names should be percent-encoded (%20). This works from browsers, scripts, iOS Shortcuts, bookmarklets, and anywhere else that can open a URL.

Settings

Setting	Default	Description
Save directory	Substacks	Vault-relative folder for saved posts
Download media	Off	Download videos, audio, podcasts, and transcripts (images and attachments always download)
maxFileSize	0	Skip media files larger than this (MB). 0 = no limit. Only visible when downloadMedia is enabled.
Download comments	Off	Fetch and save threaded comments
Comment sort order	Most recent first	Sort order for comments (most recent, oldest, or best)
Save raw JSON	Off	Save the raw Substack API JSON
Save raw HTML	Off	Save the raw article HTML

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/gapmiss/substack-clipper.git
cd substack-clipper
npm install
npm run build

License

MIT