How to move from Obsidian to Barside and keep your links

Obsidian and Barside share an idea: your notes should live on your own computer. That makes the move simple. An Obsidian vault is a folder of Markdown files, and Barside reads that folder directly, turning [[wiki links]] into note links and keeping embeds, checklists, tags and dates. This guide shows how, what changes, and what to do with the things Obsidian plugins did for you.

Before you start

Barside is a free desktop app for Windows, Linux and Mac. Like Obsidian, it is local-first: your library stays on your computer and works offline. Unlike Obsidian, its notes are rich documents rather than Markdown files, and many things Obsidian does with plugins are built in: tasks and a task board, a calendar, kanban boards, database tables, charts, a read-it-later inbox, screen recording, call transcription and an AI assistant that uses your own AI account.

Obsidian's help describes the vault plainly: "Obsidian stores your notes as Markdown-formatted plain text files in a vault. A vault is a folder on your local file system, including any subfolders." There is nothing to export: you point Barside at the folder.

Step 1: Find your vault folder

If you are not sure where your vault is, Obsidian's vault manager shows each vault and its folder. Obsidian says you can create a vault anywhere your operating system allows; many people keep theirs in Documents.

The vault folder holds your notes as .md files, attachments such as pictures, audio, video and PDFs, and a hidden .obsidian folder with that vault's settings, hotkeys, themes and plugins.

Step 2: Import the vault into Barside

1. Open Settings & backups → Notes from other apps → Import next to Import notes, or type import in the search bar.
2. Find Obsidian and choose Choose vault folder.
3. Pick the vault's main folder. Its subfolders come along.
4. Barside shows Ready to import: how many notes and attachments it found, and things to know.
5. Under Import into, keep A new workspace (From Obsidian) or choose an existing one.
6. Choose Import, then Open workspace.

The vault stays untouched. Barside only reads it.

What comes along, and what changes

Barside imports up to 5,000 notes and 1 GB of files at a time, and folders with up to 20,000 files. A larger vault can be imported folder by folder.

Replacing your plugins with built-in features

Many people use Obsidian plugins for things Barside has built in:

• Tasks: checklist items with due dates and reminders appear on the task board.
• Kanban: kanban boards in notes with cards you drag between columns.
• Dataview-style tables: database tables with typed columns, sorting, filters and totals, and charts drawn from them.
• Calendar and daily notes: a calendar next to your notes, and repeating notes from templates, like a journal every morning.
• Graph view: the note graph shows how notes connect.
• Excalidraw: drawings in notes that save as you draw.
• Templater and daily notes: Barside templates fill in the date, the week number and the weekday when a note is made, and repeating notes make a new note on a schedule, like a daily note every morning.
• Web clipper: Barside saves web pages with their layout and images, and keeps articles in a Reading inbox with highlights.

If something looks wrong

• A link shows as plain text. Its target note was not in the folder you imported. Import the folder that holds it, or link the note again with [[.
• A picture is missing. Obsidian often keeps attachments in their own folder inside the vault. If you picked a subfolder, import again from the vault's main folder, so attachments come along.
• The import stops at 5,000 notes. The preview says so. Import the rest of the vault folder by folder into the same workspace.
• Plugin syntax shows as text. Queries and plugin blocks are plain text in Markdown, so they arrive as text. Replace them with the built-in features above.

A plan for the move

1. Make a Barside backup with Export backup in Settings & backups.
2. Import the whole vault into a new workspace and open the note graph.
3. Use Barside for a week, alongside Obsidian, for one project.
4. Rebuild the plugin features you miss with Barside's boards, tables and templates.
5. Keep the vault folder as an archive when you are settled.

After the move

• Walk the graph. Open the note graph to check that links came through.
• Move into workspaces. Split From Obsidian into project workspaces and pin your maps of content to the top.
• Learn the keys. The Obsidian keyboard shortcuts page lists Barside equivalents.
• Keep the vault folder as a plain-text archive. It costs nothing to keep.

Obsidian and Barside, side by side

Obsidian is a Markdown editor with a huge plugin ecosystem. It is free, with paid Sync and Publish. Your notes stay plain files that any app can open, which Barside cannot match: Barside keeps a richer library format, which you back up as one ZIP file. Barside covers more out of the box: tasks, calendar, capture, reading, meetings and passwords, without plugins. The Obsidian alternative guide compares both, and the best second brain apps list shows others.