Compatibility

Obsidian and devices

Journals needs Obsidian 1.8.7 or later and runs on desktop and mobile. The interface follows Obsidian's language setting.

Automatic note creation can be limited to desktop or mobile, which helps when a slow sync lets two devices each create today's note — see Notes. A navigation block's previous and next periods can be limited the same way, to keep a phone's block to the current period — see Navigation blocks.

Plugins that do the same job

• Daily notes (core plugin) — Journals replaces it. A note Daily notes creates carries no journal properties, so it is only connected if its path matches a journal's folder and name template (see Auto-attach). Turn Daily notes off, or point both at different folders.
• Periodic Notes — Journals was inspired by it and replaces it. See Coming from Periodic Notes.
• Calendar — Journals builds its own calendars from view blocks. The two do not share settings or data. See Coming from Calendar.

Templater

Journals runs Templater itself when a template contains Templater commands.

1. The journal's own variables are filled in first — {{date}}, {{index}}, question answers.
2. Templater then runs its commands on the result, so a command can use a journal variable: <% tp.date.now("dddd", 0, "{{date}}", "YYYY-MM-DD") %> writes Monday into the note for 15 June 2026.
3. A sub-template pulled in with tp.file.include gets the journal's variables filled in too, before Templater reads its commands.
4. A tp.file.cursor in the template places the cursor when the new note opens.

Avoiding double processing

Templater can process a new note on its own as well, and two plugins writing the same new file can leave it half-rendered or strip the journal properties from it. The safest setup:

• Configure the template in the journal's settings, not in Templater.
• Turn off Templater's Trigger Templater on new file creation —
• or keep it on with Enable Folder Templates on and no folder template covering the journal's folder.

The journal's Templates section has a Templater caveats link with the same advice.

Notebook Navigator

Notebook Navigator replaces Obsidian's file explorer, and its calendar opens and creates daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly notes. Its calendar looks notes up by path, so it can sit alongside Journals without moving a note: point it at the paths your journals already use.

Pointing its calendar at a journal

In Notebook Navigator's settings, check that Daily note source is Notebook Navigator, and leave Root folder (vault profile) empty — it goes in front of every pattern. Each period length has its own pattern — Daily notes, Weekly notes and so on — which is a whole path written as one Moment.js format. Write the journal's Folder and Note name template into it: folder names in square brackets, and each date variable's format as it stands. A {{date}} without a format uses the journal's Default date format, so write that format out.

Journal folder	Note name template	Notebook Navigator pattern
Journal/Daily	{{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}	[Journal]/[Daily]/YYYY-MM-DD
Journal/{{date:YYYY}}	{{date:YYYY-MM}}	[Journal]/YYYY/YYYY-MM
Weekly	{{date:gggg-[W]ww}}	[Weekly]/gggg-[W]ww

Notebook Navigator insists on the parts that name a period: a weekly pattern needs a year and a week number, a daily one a year, month and day. A weekly journal named by its first day, like {{start_date:YYYY-MM-DD}}, cannot be written as a pattern it accepts.

Week numbers agree only if both plugins use the same weeks — the same first day, and the same first week of the year. Set Notebook Navigator's Periodic notes locale to Obsidian, then either leave Journals' Week configuration on Follow system locale, or turn on Apply week configuration to all dates in vault for the week configuration you chose. With that off, the week configuration applies only inside Journals, so Notebook Navigator cannot follow it. Month and weekday names in a pattern, like MMMM, match only when both plugins use the same language.

The two paths have to match exactly. Notebook Navigator finds a note by building its path from the date, and Journals only connects a note whose path its own folder and name template produce, so a pattern that differs by one character points Notebook Navigator at a file the journal never sees.

Which journals its calendar can show

Notebook Navigator builds a path from the date and nothing else, so its calendar can show a journal only if the journal's folder and name are made of date formats and fixed text. A journal's name in fixed text is fine. It cannot reach a journal whose folder or name uses:

• sequential numbers or a question's answer;
• the week of the month, the current time or date, the period's last day, or a date modification.

It has no custom intervals, so a custom-interval journal is out of its reach entirely.

It also has one pattern per period length, so it shows one journal of each: a second daily journal — for another shelf, say — and every notelet stay out of its calendar.

Notes its calendar creates

When Notebook Navigator creates a note at a journal's path, Journals connects it the moment it appears — see Auto-attach. What ends up in the note depends on the template Notebook Navigator uses for that period length:

• No template — Notebook Navigator creates an empty note, and the journal fills it from its own template, Templater commands included, as it does for a note created from a link. This is the setup to use: one template, kept in the journal.
• A template without Templater commands — Notebook Navigator writes the note complete. Journals adds only its properties; the journal's own template does not run, so you keep two templates in step.
• A template run through Templater — Templater creates the note empty and fills it a moment later, so both plugins can write the same new note. Avoid this, for the reasons in Avoiding double processing.

Notebook Navigator falls back to a folder template when no period template is set, so check that none covers the journal's folder. An empty note it creates is still a new file to Templater, so the Templater advice above applies to it too.

A journal's questions are never asked for a note created this way. If a journal has them, create its notes through Journals — its commands, views and navigation blocks — and use Notebook Navigator to browse them.

When the journal already has a note for that date

A journal keeps one note per period. If its note for a date is not at the path the journal's settings produce — you renamed or moved it, or connected it where it was — Notebook Navigator finds nothing at that path and creates a second note there. Journals leaves that second note unconnected: calendars, decorations and navigation blocks keep showing the original, while Notebook Navigator shows the new one. Delete the new note, then move the journal's note to that path if you want both plugins to agree; a note keeps its connection wherever it goes.

Week configuration and other plugins

Week configuration, set to anything but Follow system locale, offers Apply week configuration to all dates in vault. Off, the week settings apply only inside Journals. On, they also change how Obsidian itself and other plugins number weeks; you might need to restart Obsidian. See Periods.

When another plugin gets in the way

If something in Journals stops responding — a settings field you cannot change, a dialog that does not open — another plugin may be interfering. To check:

1. Under Community plugins in Obsidian's settings, turn off every plugin except Journals. Don't use Restricted mode for this: it turns off Journals too, and leaving it turns every plugin back on at once.
2. If the problem is gone, turn the other plugins back on one at a time until it returns.

Include what you find when you report a bug.