Clean Copy for Obsidian

Paste and clean text as proper Markdown inside Obsidian.

• Free: "Paste as clean Markdown" (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+V) converts clipboard HTML — headings, bold, italic, links, lists, tables, code, entities — to proper Markdown using the same engine as Clean Copy for Chrome/Firefox. "Clean selection" tidies the current selection (strips pasted HTML junk, smart quotes, zero-width characters).
• Pro ($19/yr): custom find/replace cleanup rules applied after every conversion, with regex support. Activated with a license key in settings.

Install

Via BRAT (recommended until the community listing is approved)

1. Install BRAT from Community plugins.
2. Run BRAT: Add a beta plugin for testing and paste https://github.com/mahope/clean-copy-obsidian.
3. Enable Clean Copy under Settings → Community plugins. BRAT keeps it updated from GitHub releases.

Manual install

1. Download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Put them in <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/clean-copy-obsidian/.
3. Reload Obsidian, then enable Clean Copy under Settings → Community plugins.

From Community Plugins (coming)

Submission is pending. When approved: Settings → Community plugins → Browse → search Clean Copy.

Releasing (maintainers)

A GitHub Release with main.js, manifest.json and styles.css as individual assets is all Obsidian and BRAT need. It is created automatically by .github/workflows/release.yml when a tag is pushed. Obsidian convention: the tag is the bare version without a v prefix and must equal version in manifest.json (and have an entry in versions.json).

# bump manifest.json + versions.json, commit, then:
git tag 1.0.10 && git push origin main 1.0.10

No secrets are needed. The community plugin listing itself requires one pull request to obsidianmd/obsidian-releases - the ready-made text is in docs/obsidian-releases-pr.md.

Commands

Command	Default hotkey	What it does
Paste as clean Markdown	Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+V	Clipboard HTML → clean Markdown at cursor
Paste as plain text	—	Stripped, unformatted text
Clean selection	—	Tidy already-pasted text in place

All behavior is configurable in settings (default paste format, Pro rules).

Privacy

No network access. No telemetry. The plugin reads your clipboard only when you run a paste command.

Note on naming

The community plugin id is clean-copy-obsidian; another developer uses the id clean-copy for a different plugin.

Development

node test.js

Tests cover HTML→Markdown conversion (tables, nested lists, code blocks, entities), cleanup rules and edge cases. core.js is the shared engine, identical to the browser extensions' core.

Author

Built by Mads Holst Jensen — developer and technical partner for small businesses, Odense, Denmark. https://mahoje.dk

Other Clean Copy builds: browser extension, CLI.

License

MIT