Move from Notion or Obsidian

Bring an Obsidian vault or a Notion export into Filarr, check what arrived, fix the few things that change on the way, and find your habits again.

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Moving your notes takes one import. Moving in takes a little longer: checking what arrived, fixing the few things that change on the way, and finding your habits again. This tutorial covers the whole move, with Alex's notebook of 20 linked notes in Obsidian format, then what differs when you come from Notion.

Filarr reads a copy of your notes. Your Obsidian vault or your Notion workspace stays as it is, so you can take your time.

Before you start

  • Time: about 30 minutes for a few hundred notes.
  • The desktop app. The import wizard only exists there. In the web app, Import Note brings one file at a time.
  • Your notes: the folder of your Obsidian vault, or a Notion export as a ZIP file. To practice first, use Alex's notebook or the 200-note Meridian vault from Try Filarr with sample data.

Step 1: Prepare the export

  • From Obsidian: nothing to do. Your vault is already a folder of Markdown files. With Alex's notebook, unzip the download: you get a folder named Alex Morgan notes.
  • From Notion: export your whole workspace in the Markdown & CSV format, sub-pages included. Notion gives you a ZIP file. Keep it zipped: Filarr reads the ZIP itself.

Step 2: Run the import

  1. Click Notes in the sidebar. At the top of the list of notes, open More actions (…), then Import from Obsidian, Notion, Evernote....

  2. Click Obsidian or Notion.

  3. Select the root folder of your vault, the one that holds all your notes, or the Notion ZIP file. Click Next.

  4. Leave Import tags and Preserve links between notes on. Target notebook can stay on None (root). Click Import.

  5. Read the summary: notes imported, tags created, links resolved. If a list of Warnings and Errors follows, it names the files concerned: note them down. Click Done.

See Import from Obsidian, Notion or Markdown.

Step 3: Check what arrived

Click the back arrow at the top of the list of notes (Browse).

  • Each folder at the top of your vault became a notebook. The notes of deeper folders joined the notebook of their top folder: nest notebooks later if you miss the levels. See Organize your notes.
  • Open a note full of links, such as Studio handbook in Alex's notebook. Click a link, and look at the Backlinks in the right panel: the web of links came along.
  • Press Ctrl+Shift+G to see the graph. A link that leads to no note ends on a node of its own: that is where to look for the links to fix in the next step.

Step 4: Fix what changes on the way

Most of your notes arrive as they were. A few Obsidian habits arrive differently:

  • Callouts such as > [!tip] arrive as a quote that starts with the type in bold. For a colored box, type /callout and move the text into it. Alex's notes have three of these.
  • Highlighted text, ==like this==, arrives in bold. Select it and apply Highlight again if you need it.
  • Embeds, ![[Note]], arrive as a link whose name starts with embed:, and that leads to no note. Delete it, and type ![[ to embed the note again. To find them all, type embed: in Search notes....
  • Links with another name, written with a vertical bar after the title in Obsidian, or through an alias of the note, arrive as a link to that other name, which Filarr does not know. Filarr finds a note by its exact title: retype [[ and pick the right note.
  • Links to a heading, [[Note#Heading]], arrive as a link to the top of the note. Filarr understands #Heading: add it back where it matters.
  • Images of the vault arrive as a link, not as a picture. Import them as files (step 6), then insert them with /image.
  • Comments between %% are left out.
  • Daily notes of Obsidian arrive as ordinary notes, with their title. Continue your journal with Ctrl+Shift+D: see Daily and periodic notes.

Step 5: If you come from Notion

  • Your pages become notes. A page that held other pages now holds [[links]] to them.
  • Notion databases become databases inside the note. Filarr guesses the type of each column from its values: open each one and check the types. See Databases inside your notes.
  • With the Markdown & CSV export, the images of your pages come along, up to 8 MB each. The warnings name the ones left out.
  • If you exported as HTML, Filarr suggests exporting again as Markdown & CSV: links between pages come through more reliably that way.

Step 6: Bring your attachments

PDFs, images and other attachments are files: they live in folders, next to your notes.

  1. Create a folder, for example Attachments, and click Upload Files to add the files of your vault's attachments folder.
  2. In a note, type [[ and the first letters of a file to link it. To show a picture, type /image, press Enter, and pick it in the Choose an image from the vault window.

See Add files to Filarr and Images and files in notes.

Step 7: Find your habits again

You usedIn Filarr
Daily notesCtrl+Shift+D, or the Daily Note button
Quick switcherCtrl+P while you write in a note
Graph viewCtrl+Shift+G, or Graph in the Show notes as bar
BacklinksThe right panel of each note
TemplatesMore actions (…) → Templates
Obsidian canvasThe Sticky notes view, or Board in the sidebar
Notion toggles and callouts/toggle and /callout
Notion sub-pages/page
Notion database viewsBoard, Calendar, Gallery, Timeline and more, in each database

See Slash commands and Keyboard shortcuts.

Your notes are home: same text, same links, and a short list of fixes behind you.

What next?