Features

• Browse Zhihu: the sidebar offers Recommendations, Following, Hot list, and Recent browsing feeds, and can open user profiles, questions, collections, and columns. Go back one level, refresh the current page, and keep list scroll positions.
• Read and save: answers, articles, and pins open in a dedicated reader tab with an adjustable body width. Save to Markdown in one click; updating an existing file keeps its path and custom frontmatter.
• Import content: paste a link to import a single post, or batch import with queue progress and retries for failures.
• Quick access: pin frequently used profiles, collections, questions, columns, and posts, with type filters, drag-to-reorder, and bulk link adding.
• More: Zhihu links in your notes open inside the plugin; the status bar shows the current document's type and statistics; refresh existing Zhihu Markdown to sync the latest content.

Before you start

• Obsidian desktop 1.13.0 or later
• Enable Web viewer under Settings → Core plugins
• Sign in to Zhihu before browsing, reading, importing, or refreshing content

Usage

1. Open Settings → Zhihu Feed → My account, select sign in, and complete the login in the Web Viewer.
2. Click the Zhihu icon in the ribbon, or run the Open sidebar command.
3. Click an answer, article, or pin in a feed to open the reader; click an author name to open their profile.
4. Use the floating buttons on the right of the reader to save, refresh, open the original page, or add to Quick access.
5. To import, run the Import content command or click the import button at the top of the sidebar.

Screenshots

Feeds

Recommendations	Following
Hot list	Recent browsing

Mine and Quick access

Mine	Quick access

User profile

Answers	Articles
Pins	Columns
Created collections	Followed collections
Following · Users	Following · Questions
Following · Columns	Following · Collections

Question

Default order	By time

Collection and column

Collection	Column

Reader

Import and settings

Import	Settings

Commands

Command	Purpose
Open sidebar	Open the Zhihu feeds and navigation
Open user profile	Paste a profile link and open it
Import content	Open the import dialog
Refresh current Markdown	Refresh the current Zhihu document
Refresh all Markdown	Refresh all Zhihu documents in the vault

Settings

Setting	Description
My account	Sign in, refresh the session, or sign out
User agent	User-Agent used for Zhihu requests; the default is usually fine
Default save folder	Default location for Markdown and images
Send read status to Zhihu	Sync read status and recent browsing when opening content
Open Zhihu links automatically	Open Zhihu links in notes inside the plugin
Save images to vault on import	Download Zhihu images and convert them to Obsidian image embeds
Reader width	Maximum width of the reader body
Show scrollbar	Show a floating scrollbar in sidebar lists
CJK typesetting	Add spaces between Chinese text and Latin letters, digits, and symbols
Edit cookies manually	Show the cookie editor for importing or clearing login cookies

Network and privacy

• The plugin talks to Zhihu over HTTPS only: www.zhihu.com, zhuanlan.zhihu.com, and image CDNs under zhihu.com / zhimg.com.
• Login cookies are stored in plain text in the plugin's data file and are sent only to those Zhihu hosts. Treat them as credentials: do not share them, commit them to Git, or sync the plugin data file to an untrusted location.
• When Zhihu rejects a direct page request (HTTP 401/403) or the network request fails, the plugin loads the page in the Web Viewer using your Zhihu session and then saves the refreshed session cookies.
• With Save images to vault on import enabled, the plugin downloads HTTPS images from the Zhihu image CDNs. Images hosted elsewhere keep their remote links and are never downloaded.
• The plugin has no telemetry, analytics, or third-party services, and it never sends vault contents anywhere. Network access is limited to reading the Zhihu content you open, import, or refresh.

Notes

• Manual cookies contain login credentials. Do not share them or commit them to Git. An empty value or {} clears the login state.
• Imported images are stored by content hash at <save folder>/images/<ab>/<cd>/<md5>.<ext>; a failed download keeps the remote link.
• Refresh only processes Markdown whose frontmatter contains zhihu-link (or the older url field). Refresh all Markdown enumerates Markdown file metadata in the vault to find those files; other files are neither read nor uploaded.

Acknowledgements

This project was inspired by zimya/zhihu_obsidian (Zhihu on Obsidian). Thanks to zimya for the open-source work.

License

MIT