Show Hidden Files for Obsidian

Show hidden files, like dotfiles, in Obsidian.

Repository · Changelog · Community plugin · Related · Features · Installation · Usage · Contributing · Security

For first time users, read the installation section first!

This file is automatically opened on first install. You can reopen it in settings or command palette.

Features

• Show files that are forcefully hidden in vanilla Obsidian.
• Toggle visibility of hidden files.
• Interact with hidden files normally like normal files.

Installation

1. Install plugin.
   • Community plugins
     1. Install the plugin from community plugins directly.
   • Manual
     1. Create directory show-hidden-files under .obsidian/plugins of your vault.
     2. Place manifest.json, main.js, and styles.css from the latest release into the directory.
   • Building (rolling)
     1. Clone this repository, including its submodules.
     2. Install pnpm (preferred) or npm. See https://pnpm.io/installation for pnpm.
     3. Run pnpm install in the root directory (npm install is an acceptable fallback).
     4. Run pnpm obsidian:install <vault directory> in the root directory (npm run obsidian:install <vault directory> is an acceptable fallback).
   • Obsidian42 - BRAT (rolling)
     • See their readme.
2. Enable plugin. Before you enable, please check § Usage.
3. (optional) Configure plugin settings.

Usage

• Before enabling the plugin, check if your vault contains dot folders with a lot of files (e.g. 100+ files). If yes, Obsidian will likely freeze (for a long time) when you enable the plugin, as Obsidian scans all files in the dot folders.

  By default, the plugin excludes folders and files named .git or .venv at any level of the vault file tree. If your dot folders are excluded by the defaults, you can simply enable the plugin without freezing Obsidian. The defaults can be edited in plugin settings.

  If not, you should manually create .obsidian/plugins/show-hidden-files/data.json, with the following contents as an example (excluding the comments):

  {
      "showingRules": [
          "+/", // Needed to include all hidden files and folders.
          // Add dot folders with a lot of files, e.g.:
          "-/\\.git(?:\\/|$)/u",
          "-/\\.venv(?:\\/|$)/u",
          "-/\\.aDotFolderWithManyFiles(?:\\/|$)/u",
      ]
  }

  The example excludes folders and files named .git, .venv, or .aDotFolderWithManyFiles at any level of the vault file tree. You can instead use "-.aDotFolderWithManyFiles/" to exclude a folder or file named .aDotFolderWithManyFiles at the vault root only.

• Enable the plugin.

• Please also enable Files & links > Detect all file extensions for the plugin to work properly.

• Other plugins will treat visible hidden files as normal files. This may cause issues such as treating plugin JavaScript files as user scripts. To resolve such issues, exclude those hidden files in the other plugins' settings or hide those hidden files in this plugin's settings.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome!

Changesets

This project uses changesets to manage the changelog. When creating a pull request, please add a changeset describing the changes. Add multiple changesets if your pull request changes several things. End each changeset with ([PR number](PR link) by [author username](author link)). For example, the newly created file under the directory .changeset should look like:

---
"example": patch
---

This is an example change. ([GH#1](https://github.com/ghost/example/pull/1) by [@ghost](https://github.com/ghost))

Linting, Commit, and Hooks

This project uses the following tools to ensure code and commit quality:

• ESLint: Linting for TypeScript/JavaScript. Run with pnpm run check (lint only) or pnpm run fix (auto-fix lint issues).
• Prettier: Code formatting. Run with pnpm run format (format all files) or pnpm run format:check (check formatting only).
• markdownlint: Lints Markdown files. Run with pnpm run markdownlint or auto-fix with pnpm run markdownlint:fix.
• commitlint: Enforces conventional commit messages. Used automatically on commit via Husky.
• husky: Manages Git hooks. Pre-commit runs lint-staged and pre-push runs commitlint.
• lint-staged: Runs linters on staged files. Markdown files are auto-fixed before commit.

Lint-staged note: The lint-staged configuration (.lintstagedrc.mjs) invokes formatter/linter binaries directly (for example prettier --write, eslint --cache --fix, markdownlint-cli2 --fix) so that the list of staged files is passed through to the tool. Invoking these via npm run would prevent lint-staged from forwarding filenames and cause the tool to operate on its default glob (or the entire repo). Use pnpm run format to format the entire repository when needed.

To set up locally:

1. Run pnpm install to install dependencies and set up hooks.
2. On commit, staged Markdown files will be linted and auto-fixed.
3. Commit messages are checked for conventional format.

You can manually run:

• pnpm run check — lint all code (no formatting)
• pnpm run fix — auto-fix lint issues (no formatting)
• pnpm run format — format all code with Prettier
• pnpm run format:check — check formatting with Prettier
• pnpm run markdownlint — check all Markdown files
• pnpm run markdownlint:fix — auto-fix Markdown files
• pnpm run commitlint — check commit messages in range

Configuration files:

• .eslintrc.* or eslint.config.mjs — ESLint rules
• .prettierrc — Prettier rules
• .prettierignore — Prettier ignore patterns
• .markdownlint.jsonc — markdownlint rules
• .commitlintrc.js — commitlint config
• .husky/ — Git hooks

Testing

This repository uses Vitest for fast unit tests. Tests live under tests/ and should be named *.spec.ts or *.spec.js.

• Run locally (non-interactive, coverage): pnpm test or npm run test (runs vitest run --coverage).
• Run locally (interactive / watch): pnpm run test:watch or npm run test:watch.
• Git hooks: The pre-push hook runs npm run test (see .husky/pre-push) and will block pushes if tests fail; using pnpm test locally is equivalent.

See vitest.config.mts for minimal config and further instructions.

Todos

The todos here, ordered alphabetically, are things planned for the plugin. There are no guarantees that they will be completed. However, we are likely to accept contributions for them.

• (none)

Translating

See assets/locales/README.md.

Security

We hope that there will never be any security vulnerabilities, but unfortunately it does happen. Please report them!

Supported versions

Version	Supported
rolling	✅
latest	✅
outdated	❌

Reporting a vulnerability

Please report a vulnerability by opening an new issue. We will get back to you as soon as possible.