Useful Obsidian Plugins: Search, Kanban, Dataview and Excalidraw

Obsidian is my main note-taking app, and for a long time I used it almost out of the box. Everything changed when I started installing community plugins: Obsidian turned into a tool that searches note contents, runs projects on kanban boards, builds trackers over my knowledge base and shows where it has gaps.

Below are the Obsidian plugins that really stuck in my workflow, with examples of how I use them. If you don't yet see why people praise Obsidian so much, start with these.

How to enable community plugins

Settings → Community plugins → turn off restricted mode → Browse. Find a plugin, click Install, and then be sure to click Enable — people often forget that last step.

Keep in mind that community plugins are third-party code with access to your notes. Install popular, maintained ones and disable those you don't need.

Omnisearch: search by meaning, not just by title

Obsidian's built-in search is good, but Omnisearch is more convenient: it ranks results, tolerates typos and searches not only note text but also the contents of PDFs and images (with the Text Extractor plugin installed).

My typical scenario: I remember a fragment but not the note's title. For example, I need the ffmpeg command for compressing video — I type ffmpeg, and the right note is right at the top. Or I've forgotten the name of the note about the "magic numbers" anti-pattern, but I remember the code example had a MAX_FILE_SIZE constant — Omnisearch finds it by that word. In the same way I find my SOLID note by typing just "single responsibility".

Kanban: task boards inside your vault

Kanban creates boards that are stored as regular Markdown files. Columns are stages or projects, cards are tasks. Cards can be dragged between columns, you can add a date to them, and the board itself can be shown as a list, a table or classic columns.

I usually split a board by project: one column for ideas for one project, another for a second project, and a separate "Done" column. The main advantage over external task trackers is that tasks live next to your notes and can link to them.

Dataview: queries over your own knowledge base

Dataview lets you write queries over your notes and get tables and lists with filters and sorting. It's the most powerful plugin on this list, and I'm still discovering new things it can do.

I have a "Trackers" folder with several such queries. Notes without a single link — they drop out of the knowledge graph and need to be connected:

LIST
FROM ""
WHERE length(file.inlinks) = 0 AND length(file.outlinks) = 0

Notes I worked on during the last week:

TABLE file.mtime AS "Modified"
FROM ""
WHERE file.mtime >= date(today) - dur(7 days)
SORT file.mtime DESC

Another tracker looks odd but helps me: it counts the weeks of life remaining based on average life expectancy. I took the idea from a book. Some people find this depressing; for me it forces an honest look at where my time goes: less social media, more of what really matters.

Projects and Bases: notes as tables

The Projects plugin showed notes from a folder as a table, board or gallery based on their properties. That's how I keep my list of books: each book has an author, tags, a start date, a rating and a page count, and in the table I can filter, say, all unread books under 200 pages.

An important update: in 2025 the author discontinued Projects, and the plugin was removed from the catalog. For the same scenario Obsidian now has a built-in core plugin — Bases. It builds tables and cards from note properties, supports filters, sorting and formulas, and your data stays in your Markdown files. For a new database I'd choose Bases.

Kindle Highlights and Calendar

Kindle Highlights moves highlights from a Kindle into Obsidian: via your Amazon account or from the My Clippings.txt file on the reader itself. In the settings you choose a folder — mine is Kindle — and every book becomes a separate note with quotes.

Calendar adds a calendar to the sidebar. Clicking a day creates a daily note, and dots under the dates show when you were writing.

Plugins that save minutes every day

• Clear Unused Images finds images that are no longer used in any note. You pasted a picture, then deleted the link — the file stayed. The plugin found and removed about 300 such images for me.
• Paste URL into selection: select text, press Ctrl+V with an address in the clipboard — and you get a ready [text](address) link. A small thing, but I add sources to notes all the time.
• Editing Toolbar adds a formatting bar: headings, highlights, colors, alignment, image insertion. Useful if you don't want to memorize Markdown syntax.
• Audio Player lets you embed audio in notes and play it right inside them.
• Dashboard Navigator shows vault statistics: recently modified files, the number of notes, images and videos, and navigation by file type.

Excalidraw: diagrams next to your notes

Excalidraw is hand-drawn-style diagramming right inside Obsidian. A new drawing is created from the context menu ("New drawing"), saved in the vault as a file and embedded in any note. I use it for architecture diagrams and connections between concepts: one picture often explains more than a page of text.

Where to start

I'd start with Omnisearch and Dataview: the first saves time every day, the second shows how your knowledge base is actually structured. How I organize the vault itself and what stopped working over the years is in Obsidian after three years. And how not to forget what you read is covered in the breakdown of Obsidian, RemNote and Gemini.

Sources

• My Obsidian plugins video on YouTube
• Omnisearch, Kanban, Dataview
• Bases in the Obsidian help, Projects
• Kindle Highlights, Calendar
• Excalidraw for Obsidian