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Event Linked Notes

Feature Overview

Take rich, local markdown notes for all your remote calendar events! Event Linked Notes allow you to connect a dedicated, local markdown note inside Obsidian to any event from your remote calendars (such as Google Calendar, CalDAV, ICS, or Outlook). Organize meeting agendas, track action items, and store private references—all while keeping your external calendars cleanly synchronized.

How It Works: The User Workflow

When you click on a remote calendar event in Obsidian, the event details modal opens.

  1. Open Note (popup button): Click the Open Note button in the top-right corner of the event modal. If no linked note exists yet, one will be created automatically in your configured directory.
  2. Ctrl/Cmd+click (keyboard shortcut): Hold Ctrl (Windows/Linux) or ⌘ (macOS) and click any remote event. This opens the existing linked note immediately—or creates one and then opens it—without needing to open the popup first.
  3. Right-click → Open linked note (context menu): Right-click any remote event to reveal the context menu. The Open linked note item appears for all providers that support linked notes (Google Calendar, CalDAV, Outlook, ICS, Holidays). It is a single-action shortcut—create-if-missing, open-always.
  4. Automated Templating: The new note is populated with rich event details (date, time, location, description, calendar name) according to your template.
  5. Instant Access: On subsequent uses of any path, the same note is opened according to your selected link strategy. Name-based mode checks the exact title path first; deadline-based mode uses event and occurrence identity.

Smart Tab Reuse

All three paths above (popup button, Ctrl/Cmd+click, and context menu) share the same tab-reuse logic: if the linked note is already open in a tab, that tab is brought to the front rather than opening a duplicate. This is especially useful for recurring meetings where you return to the same note many times a day.

Handling Recurring Events

The Linked note link strategy setting controls how recurring remote events and rescheduled task instances use notes:

  • Deadline-based is the compatibility default. Each occurrence gets an instance-specific note.
  • Name-based first checks for an exact title-matched file in the configured linked-notes folder. It opens that file when present, or creates it without a suffix when absent. Moving a task deadline or opening another occurrence continues to use the same note.

When name mode reuses an existing title-matched file, it adds or updates only the calendar ID and event UID properties; the existing body and unrelated properties remain unchanged. These stable frontmatter IDs preserve lookup after the note is later renamed or moved.

Name-based matching is folder-specific and exact after filename sanitization. For example, an event titled Project / Launch matches Project Launch.md inside the configured linked-notes folder. It does not search other folders or add collision suffixes such as -_-_-1.

In deadline-based mode:

  • Collision-Free Filenames: Newly generated notes automatically append the occurrence date directly to the filename to avoid vault conflicts in your notes folder (e.g., Weekly Sync 2026-05-20.md).
  • Instance Frontmatter Identity: The note's YAML frontmatter includes an additional field fc-event-recurrence-id specifying the exact date of that occurrence: 
    fc-event-uid: 0q5u45oijpqnkljsndpfoiash98
fc-calendar-id: google-calendar-work
fc-event-recurrence-id: "2026-05-20"
  • Smart Template Substitution: The {{date}} placeholder in your note body template automatically resolves to the specific instance's date (e.g. Wednesday, May 20, 2026) instead of the series start date.

Configuration Settings

Go to Settings → Calendars to set up the default behavior. The Linked Note Settings section appears at the top of the Calendars tab.

1️⃣ Linked Notes Directory

Choose the folder inside your Obsidian vault where all newly created event notes will be stored (e.g., Meetings or Inbox/Calendar). Use the folder dropdown to select an existing folder. If the folder does not exist, it will be automatically created upon the first note generation.

Choose Name-based when a project, recurring series, or rescheduled task should keep one shared note. Exact matching uses the sanitized event title inside the configured linked-notes folder, so events with the same title intentionally share that note. Choose Deadline-based when every dated occurrence needs its own note. Changing this setting affects future lookup and creation; it does not rename or merge existing notes.

3️⃣ Linked Note Template

Write a custom template that will populate the body of every new note. You can use standard markdown and insert the following double-braced dynamic placeholders:

Placeholder Replaced With Example Output
{{title}} The title of the calendar event Brainstorming Session
{{date}} Localized long-form date Wednesday, May 20, 2026
{{timeString}} Start & end time or "All Day" 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM or All Day
{{location}} The location of the event Meeting Room A or https://zoom.us/j/123...
{{url}} The primary URL link associated with the event https://zoom.us/j/123456789
{{description}} The full description / notes of the event Discuss next major features and UI remastering.
{{calendarName}} The name of the calendar source in Obsidian Work Calendar

Default Template Example

# {{title}}

**Date**: {{date}}
**Time**: {{timeString}}
**Location**: {{location}}
**Calendar**: {{calendarName}}

## Description
{{description}}

## Notes
-

4️⃣ Template Presets (Power Users)

If you require different layouts/templates for different types of events, enable the Enable template presets setting.

  • Decoupling from Default: Enabling this setting hides the default "Linked note template" editor row. Instead, you configure one or more note files inside your vault to serve as your templates list.
  • Selection Modal: When creating or linking a remote event note, Obsidian will display a modal prompting you to select which template preset to load the note with.
  • Configuration: Select any existing markdown note in your vault via the dropdown to add it to your active presets list.
  • At Least One Preset Required: Once preset mode is on, the preset list must contain at least one configured note before new linked notes can be created.
  • Frontmatter Preservation: Preset files may define their own YAML frontmatter, and the plugin merges managed identity fields into that content instead of replacing it.

Privacy & Robustness Invariants

Privacy First

All event notes reside locally in your Obsidian vault. They are never sent to external servers (like Google or CalDAV host servers). Your private thoughts, notes, and tasks remain strictly yours.

Robust Link Preservation

The link between your note and the remote event is stored via lightweight parameters inside the note's YAML frontmatter: 

fc-event-uid: 0q5u45oijpqnkljsndpfoiash98
fc-calendar-id: google-calendar-work
These IDs support reactive indexing and preserve the connection after a linked note is renamed or moved: * Rename and Move Recovery: After identity properties are attached, the reactive index can continue resolving a linked note that is renamed or moved within the configured linked-notes directory. * Re-sync Recovery: Clearing the local calendar cache does not remove the identity properties stored in the note. * Minimal Changes: Reusing an existing name-based note updates only managed identity properties. CalDAV task notes may additionally contain managed scheduled/due properties. * Predictable Reuse: Name-based mode intentionally shares one file between events with the same sanitized title in the configured folder. Deadline-based mode keeps dated occurrences separate.