Migrate from Notion to Obsidian

In this video I walk through why Obsidian is a better choice for personal note taking than Notion is, what some advantages are that Obsidian offers, how to import your notes from Notion into Obsidian, how to configure the Obsidian app, and finally how to configure obsidian.nvim to edit your notes inside of Neovim at the speed of thought.
Obsidian Docs: help.obsidian.md/import/notion
Obsidian Plugin: github.com/epwalsh/obsidian.nvim
Companion Article: levelup.gitconnected.com/why-...
Calendar YT Video: • The 5 BEST Obsidian Pl...
My Neovim Config: github.com/exosyphon/nvim
Jetbrains LSP Post: discuss.kotlinlang.org/t/any-...
Embedded Neovim: youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/...
Install SDKMan: sdkman.io/
Kotlin Language Server: github.com/fwcd/kotlin-langua...
LSP Comparisons: github.com/neovim/nvim-lspcon...
Join the channel to get access to perks:
www.youtube.com/@ascourter/join
Twitter: / exosyphon
Website: andrewcourter.com
Twitch: / exosyphon
Gear:
Mic: amzn.to/40GUGFg
Mic Interface: amzn.to/3YGxaGE
Mic preamp: amzn.to/3XtBXtY
Webcam: amzn.to/3OEOZRU
Boom Arm: amzn.to/3qLr0GE
Vissles (VS II switches): vissles.com/?ref=69zn8aei20 - Coupon Code for $5 off: ANDREWCOURTER
IQUNIX F97 (TTC ACE switches): iqunix.store/collections/f97-...
🎵 Music
"Tokyo Music Walker - Way Home" is under a Creative Commons (CC-BY) license.
/ @tokyomusicwalker4038
Music promoted by BreakingCopyright: bit.ly/way-home-song
⏰ Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:41 Advantages of Obsidian
2:54 Export / Import from Notion to Obsidian
6:34 Setup Obsidian App
9:04 Backup vs Syncing
10:03 Setup obsidian.nvim
14:55 Outro
#neovim #coding #programming

[@ascourter]

What note taking strategy or app do you use?

[@oleksii_luchnikov]

Few monthes ago I wrote vault.nvim plugin for myself for my obsidian notetaking strategy, as addition to obsidian.nvim plugin. A lot of stuff I've done for it based on your videos about neovim plugin development. Thank you!

[@youtube.user.1234]

I previously used Obsidian but then I switched to Anytype (free and open-source Notion alternative) and have been pretty satisfied with it 👍

[@StefanoPompa]

I was on notion and these days i was doing exactly the same passages described on this video!

[@zherka_pill]

I wanted to use doom Emacs I don't know how to do that

[@dinonuggett]

I’ve been using Obsidian only with the built-in vim plugin but now I’m definitely going to try this out!

[@tamasbalint1597]

I will watch this later, but really intrigued by the video.

[@user-xd5gd4pc9h]

Great! With proper terminal such as wezterm or kitty, neovim can preview and paste images. Looking forward you do a video on that!

[@thiagopuntar]

What a coincidency, I'm moving from Notion to Obsidian this week. One thing that is annoying me so much using Linux is the ctrl n / ctrl p to navigate on Obsidian menus, I still didn't find a way of solving this issue. On Mac this doesn't happen because it's command instead of ctrl. But I'm liking so far. Thanks for sharing

[@ascourter]

Thanks! Ah that's an unfortunate conflict. Could you map to Ctrl shift p?

[@K.Huynh.]

thank you for sharing! I'll try this.

[@Whiteseal222]

Great video! helped me make the switch. one question... how do you use "jj" to escape insert mode in vim lol

[@ascourter]

Thanks! I am glad I was able to help you! Here's the line to add into your config: vim.keymap.set("i", "jj", "", { desc = "Esc" })

[@Thel-foo]

syncthing also provides great backup functionality

[@linkarzu]

Hey Andrew, great videos. I love obsidian, but recently I’ve been using only neovim for markdown editing. Before obsidian I used google docs and that was a pain. I have a few videos regarding markdown in neovim, one for jumping through headings, outline on the right side, and changing headings colors. In case you want to check them out 🙂

[@ascourter]

Excellent! I will check them out

[@necraul]

Migrate from Obsidian to regular markdown next. Free sync across your devices with Syncthing too.

[@ascourter]

Haha who knows, I may just end up there eventually!

[@Ammon4294]

what is the app you use to enable "CMD+Arrow Right" as app switching?

[@ascourter]

I think that's probably CMD + tab

[@EduardoRodriguezRocks]

so you need to be on the vault path to be able to open a note for then plugin activate, which is uncomfortable given it would be nice to be able to open a note while working on a file

[@ascourter]

I believe you could use "dynamic" workspaces to edit notes agnostic of your path. github.com/epwalsh/obsidian.nvim?tab=readme-ov-file#usage-outside-of-a-workspace-or-vault

[@depreza68]

do you know how to create a file through `ObsidianNew` but with according to it's name, it just keeps on having random numbers as the first name, then following with random char afterwards, there's no name of it at all, only in the alias, also it creates at the root on the vault not in e.g. root/Zettlekasten

[@ascourter]

You should be able to update your config with a couple options: notes_subdir = "Zettlekasten", note_id_func = function(title) return title end,

[@tamasbalint1597]

Would love to hear from you how you prefer taking notes, if you have a system you enjoy.

[@ascourter]

Thanks for the request! I'll put this on my list to make a video on.

[@CanDoSo_org]

Thanks for the great tutorial. I tried many time to export and import from Notion to Obsidian, but it failed in the process of importing.

[@ascourter]

Oh no! Does it just outright fail or give you an incomplete output?

[@CanDoSo_org]

@@ascourter Two erro message like this: Failed: "d23c8a5d-a7f8-4988-98d1-c246c773f4b5_Export-93287351-cca3-4d4e-abf2-9bcc9761761d.zip/Export-93287351...”. No idea what it means and how to fix it.

[@CanDoSo_org]

@@ascourter Could be too big? I have as big as 2.5GB after exported from Notion.

[@ascourter]

@@CanDoSo_org Ah I gotcha. What are you going to try next?

[@radvilardian740]

does ur lazyloading works ? because u put the config ot after folder.

[@ascourter]

Good question. I think the lazy loading breaks when putting the config into after/plugin (www.reddit.com/r/neovim/s/iwic6GrjGb). Thanks for calling this out! I'll make another video on this gotcha after I reorganize my config.

[@radvilardian740]

yah, I think u re also calling the setup function twice, since u didnt mark the plugin's spec as config = false.

[@ascourter]

@@radvilardian740 yep I think you're correct

[@radvilardian740]

nice video, I am using obsidian too, but my gf works hehe.

[@ascourter]

@@radvilardian740 rub it in why don't ya! 🤣

[@amitprakash5220]

I like obsidian too but i feel notion is still better for a college student as it allows you to host your notes for free of cost on a live website . But we need to pay 8$ monthly in obsidian to host it on a website with help of obsidian publish. But yes both have its own pros and cons.

[@ascourter]

Definitely tradeoffs like you mentioned. Obsidian can be free but you have to do some work yourself. Notion definitely is easier for collaboration and having notes across many devices without extra steps.

[@DanteMishima]

Exports from notion. Imports into obsidian. Doesn't show what imported files look like. Important as files were exported as html

[@ascourter]

Did you run into an issue with your files?

[@cody_codes_youtube]

I use google docs! I’m such a lame o

[@ascourter]

The first step is admitting you have a problem 😂

[@cody_codes_youtube]

@@ascourter I dunno man. ZERO CONFIG, and 0% need for KZbin videos to help me….

[@ascourter]

@@cody_codes_youtube haha fair enough. Sounds like you should make a video on your Google Docs note taking system :D

[@cody_codes_youtube]

@@ascourter honestly, I plan on it. More of a work log and freelancing approach. But it’s also served me well in my career to advance it well. That is a conversation more about the meat of the notes vs what tool you use to do it