Import from Obsidian, Notion or Markdown

Your notes may already live somewhere else: a folder of Markdown files, an Obsidian vault, a Notion workspace. Filarr can take them in. It reads a copy: the original files stay as they are.

There are two ways in, both in the More actions menu (…) at the top of the list of notes:

• Import Note brings one file in, in the desktop app and in the web app;
• Import from Obsidian, Notion, Evernote... brings a whole vault or export in, in the desktop app only.

Import one file

1. Open More actions (…), then Import Note.
2. Choose the file on your computer.

The note opens right away. Filarr accepts:

File	Result
.md, .markdown	A note with the text and its Markdown formatting
.txt	A note with the text as it is, named after the file
.html, .htm	A note with the text and the formatting of the page
.filarr	The note exported from Filarr, with all its information
.json	Several notes, when the file holds a list of notes

For a Markdown or HTML file, the title of the note comes from the first level 1 heading, or from the title of the web page. Without either, the note is called "Imported Note".

Import an Obsidian vault or a Notion export

1. Open More actions (…), then Import from Obsidian, Notion, Evernote....
2. In the Import Notes window, click Obsidian or Notion.

3. Pick what to import:
   • Obsidian: select the root folder of your vault, the one that holds all your notes.
   • Notion: in Notion, export all your content as HTML or Markdown, then select the ZIP file you got.
4. Click Next.

5. Choose the options, then click Import:
   • Target notebook: where the notes that are not in a folder go. None (root) leaves them out of any notebook.
   • Import tags: creates the tags found in the notes.
   • Preserve links between notes: turns the [[links]] between imported notes into working links.

Filarr shows its progress: reading the files, parsing, converting, then resolving links. At the end, it sums up what it did.

If some files caused trouble, a list of Warnings and Errors follows the summary. Read it: it names the files concerned.

What you get

From Obsidian

• Each folder at the top of the vault becomes a notebook, named after the folder. Notes in subfolders go into the notebook of their top-level folder: the subfolders themselves are not kept.
• #tags and the tags of the frontmatter become tags. A nested tag such as #clients/lumen only gives the note its last part (lumen).
• Simple [[links]] between notes work in Filarr, and show in the backlinks and the graph.

Some things arrive differently, or not at all:

• A link with an alias, [[Note|alias]], becomes [[alias]]: it no longer finds its note. Check these links after the import.
• A link to a heading, [[Note#Heading]], becomes [[Note]]: it opens the note at the top.
• Embeds, ![[…]], become dead links written [[embed:…]], embedded images included. Add the embedded notes again in Filarr, see Sub-pages and embedded notes.
• Other images are not copied into the notes: they arrive as links.
• Obsidian callouts, such as > [!tip], arrive as a quote that starts with the type in bold (tip, for example), not as a Filarr callout. To get a colored box, create a callout with /callout and move the text into it (see Blocks, layouts and callouts).
• Highlighted text (==text==) arrives in bold.
• When a note holds a level 1 heading (# …), that heading becomes its title instead of the file name. Links that use the file name then no longer find the note.
• Comments between %% are left out.
• Only the Markdown files are read. The PDFs, images and other files of the vault stay out of Filarr: add them to your folders separately (see Add files to Filarr).

From Notion

• Your pages become notes, named after the page. Each folder at the top of the export becomes a notebook, and deeper pages go into the notebook of their top-level folder.
• From a "Markdown & CSV" export, links between pages become [[links]], and the images and files next to the pages are copied into the notes. A file over 8 MB is left out, and the summary names it.
• From an HTML export, links between pages do not come through. Filarr suggests exporting again as "Markdown & CSV".
• Each Notion database becomes a note of its own, holding a database you can edit. Filarr guesses the type of each column from its values: check them after the import. The values of columns such as Tags, Category, Status or Type also become tags of the matching pages.
• Two pages with the same title cannot be told apart: links to them may open the wrong one. The summary warns you.

Limits

• Files over 10 MB are skipped, and the summary tells you how many.
• A very large vault can be cut short: Filarr then imports the first notes and tells you. Split the vault into parts and import them one at a time.
• Evernote appears in the name of the menu, but Evernote files (.enex) cannot be imported yet.

Related articles

• Organize your notes
• Link your notes
• Move from Notion or Obsidian
• Try Filarr with sample data