Automatically create link embed for all previously added links in Obsidian

[MrMxyzptlk]

Love this plugin!

I have thousands of separate notes with links in them; is there a way to automatically convert to the card view, without having to manually do this in all of them? Also a way to makes this happen automatically when I import from Notes, Keep, etc...

Thank you.

[Seraphli]

This operation is too dangerous. If you originally wanted to retain the Markdown format of some links, this operation seems to require some complex judgment of the format. So I don't think I will implement this.

[MrMxyzptlk]

OK. I'm just syncing everything from Raindrop.IO and all the card view items have an image pulled from the URL. So I guess I don't have a good way to do this to thousands of notes with URLs other than individually?

Could you make this work on an import? Rather than on current items in Obsidian, or is that just as dangerous?

[Seraphli]

The “danger” I mentioned earlier mainly refers to the fact that Obsidian might freeze if it has to handle a large number of files. What exactly do you mean by “importing”? Are you using any other plugins to do the import? I haven’t used Raindrop.io before, so you’ll need to show me an example—e.g., what would a file you import look like? And what does the “card view item” you’re talking about look like inside Obsidian?

[MrMxyzptlk]

There is a Raindrop.io sync addon for Obsidian. I have also exported my Google Keep cards / notes, and they export as html / json with images. I have manually imported them with the native import option in Obsidian.

So I have attached what card view looks like in Raindrop.io, and a couple of shots of the same in Obsidian.

So basically I like to see an embedded image from a URL as a visual for that note / card.

[Seraphli]

So you want to turn the Source URL in the note into an embedded link, right? From what I can see in Cards View, even if you do that, it still can’t achieve the same effect as Raindrop.io. By the way, is this Cards View another Obsidian plugin? I haven’t come across anything like it before.

Overall, your setup sounds a bit like using the Obsidian Hypothesis Plugin. The notes synced into Obsidian include extra metadata, so I’m not sure whether edits you make to a card in Raindrop.io after syncing would overwrite the note in Obsidian. It looks as though you’re exporting and importing manually, so if you also have to deal with the changes introduced by an Obsidian plugin, merging those edits will be very cumbersome. My suggestion is to use Obsidian purely for storage rather than for aesthetics.