I am pleased to announce the initial public release of Obsidian External Namespaces, an Obsidian plugin that allows you to link to cloud-synchronized files and folders across different devices.

Cloud services, like Dropbox or OneDrive, often reside at different local addresses and file paths across different devices. For example, your Dropbox folder might reside at D:\Dropbox on your desktop, but C:\User\Joe\Dropbox on your laptop. A link that works on one device will not work on another.

This plugin allows you to define local paths for synchronized folders. In settings, input the root directory of Dropbox on your device. Then you can use Dropbox-specific links that work across desktop devices where the plugin is installed.

So, I may wish to link to my desktop version of an article stored at C:\Dropbox\papers\smith2020.pdf. I can right-click the file, select “Copy as Path” and paste into an Obsidian note. It will paste as a formatted link:

[smith2020.pdf](obsidian://ens?p=dropbox:papers/smith2020.pdf)

If the plugin is similarly set up on the laptop, the link will direct to C:\ User\Joe\Dropbox\papers\smith2020.pdf

The plugin allows you to keep synchronized links to cloud-synced files and folders.

Limitations

External Namespaces is in initial development. It is desktop-only and currently restricted to Windows paths. It makes no network requests, uses no cloud APIs, and does not read or modify file contents. It simply resolves configured local paths and asks the operating system to open them.

This initial 0.9.0 release includes the core workflow: configure folder roots, paste paths into notes, automatically convert matching paths into namespace links, and open those links later from Obsidian.

Installation

The plugin is available through the Obsidian Community Plugin store. It can also be downloaded and installed from its GitHub repository.