Obsidian is powerful. But a lot of its best features are “hidden”, and they are hard to discover if you aren’t looking for them.

I’m here to help you get the most out of this app, and that means telling you about everything that Obsidian has to offer.

With that in mind, here are five of my favorite hidden features in Obsidian!

Command Palette

The Command Palette is well known, but it’s hands down one of the most useful features in Obsidian, so I thought it was worth the mention. The Command Palette allows you to run almost any command in Obsidian effortlessly.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Obsidian has incredible keyboard shortcuts. You can bind almost anything to a keyboard shortcut in Obsidian, all you have to do is open the “Hotkeys” menu.

My rule of thumb: anything I do more than once per day, I use a keyboard shortcut. Less than that, I use the command palette.

Tip: If you have trouble remembering a new keyboard shortcut, search for the command in the Command Palette. You will see the keyboard shortcut listed to the right of the command.

Callouts

Callouts are quite helpful to keep your notes looking nice. They give you another level of formatting above and beyond what Markdown usually offers.

If you have a note that feels too long, try pulling some pieces of it into callouts. You might be surprised how much it helps. See Using Callouts in Obsidian for more.

Embedded Searches

This is one of my favorite hidden features. Search results don’t have to be confined to your sidebar: you can embed search results directly in your notes.

This is an easy way to add dynamic content to your notes, no plugin required! Learn more about them in Obsidian Search: Five Hidden Features.

Canvases

One of the newer features on this list: Canvases are a built-in feature in Obsidian that allows you to create notes on an infinite canvas.

If you’re new to canvases, see Getting Started with Canvas in Obsidian.

If you feel too constrained brainstorming in a single note, then the canvas might be for you. Try it anytime you need more space than a single note can offer.

You can also embed notes and even create self-updating visualizations with canvas: it’s a powerful tool that most of us don’t use enough!

Conclusion

You don’t need a bunch of plugins to use Obsidian! It is a capable tool all on its own, and sometimes it’s good to take a step back and re-learn the fundamentals of the tools we know and love.

If you haven’t used any of the above features in your vault, then I would encourage you to give them a try! Maybe they will be one of your favorite hidden features too.