Files and folders

What it is

The explorer is the list of everything in the vault: folders, and the notes inside them. It is the same list the graph draws and search searches — there is no separate "library".

Everyday use

• Open a note by clicking it — it opens in the tab you are in (a pinned tab is never taken over); ⌘-click, or right-click → Open in new tab, for another tab.
• Create with the two icons at the top of the list (new note, new folder), or ⌘N for a note. New notes land in the folder you last clicked in, or wherever Settings → Files & links says.
• Rename from the right-click menu, or double-click a note's title in the editor.
• Move with right-click → Move file to… (dragging a note into the editor inserts a link to it; it does not move it)
• Collapse / expand everything with the arrows icon at the top; the crosshair icon reveals the note you are reading.
• Sort with the arrows-up-down icon: by name, modified or created.

The right-click menu

For a note: open in a new tab, to the right, or in a new window; duplicate; move; bookmark; merge into another note; copy path; version history; rename; delete. For a folder: new note or folder inside, colour, rename, delete.

Colours

Right-click → Colour gives a folder or note one of seven colours. A folder's colour flows down to every note inside it that has no colour of its own — in the list, and in the graph, where those notes' dots take the colour too. That is the fastest way to make a graph readable: colour the top-level folders.

Where the files really are

Every note is markdown. You can export the whole vault as a zip of .md files at any time (command palette → Export vault), and import a folder or an Obsidian vault the same way — see Import and export.