How to Use Obsidian: The Beginner's Guide (First Vault, Linked Notes, and a Daily Note That Sticks)

CodexFuse Team · 2026-10-28T10:21:09.619Z · 15 min read

Learn how to use Obsidian: create your first vault, link notes with [[ ]], and build a daily-note habit that sticks. Free and local-first — no plugins needed to start.

Learning how to use Obsidian takes about an hour, and most of that hour is writing your first notes — not configuring the app. Obsidian is a free, local-first note app: your notes live as plain Markdown files in a folder on your own computer, and you connect them with links so old ideas stay findable. If you can write a note and type two square brackets, you can use Obsidian.

This guide walks you through the whole starter loop — install, first vault, first linked notes, daily notes, and a folder setup you can copy — with no plugins needed on day one. If you have never written Markdown before, a free markdown editor is a good place to practise the formatting Obsidian uses.

How Do You Use Obsidian?

To use Obsidian, download the free app, create a vault, write notes in Markdown, and link related notes together with [[double square brackets]]. That is the whole core idea: notes as files you own, linked into a map instead of filed into a pile. The rest of this guide is that loop, done carefully, once.

1. Download Obsidian from the official site (obsidian.md) and install it on your computer.
2. Create one vault — a folder that will hold all your notes.
3. Write your first note in plain Markdown.
4. Link it to a second note by typing [[ and the other note's name.
5. Open a daily note tomorrow and link out from it. Repeat.

That is the entire system. Everything else in Obsidian — themes, plugins, the graph view — is optional decoration on top of those five steps, and the beginner guides that rank for this question all say the same thing: start simple, add features only when you can name the problem they solve.

What Is an Obsidian Vault?

An Obsidian vault is a folder on your computer that holds your notes. Every note is a plain-text file with a .md extension inside that folder, plus a hidden .obsidian folder that stores the vault's settings, plugins, and themes. You can have as many vaults as you want, but you open one at a time — although you can run several Obsidian windows, each with a different vault.

Because a vault is an ordinary folder, backing it up is as simple as backing up any other folder — copy it, or point your usual backup tool at it. But that also means backup is your job: nothing is stored on Obsidian's servers unless you switch on its paid Sync service, so if the folder is lost and you have no copy, the notes are gone. Set up a backup before you have a hundred notes, not after.

Start with one vault, not five. Notes can only link to other notes in the same vault, so splitting work and personal into separate vaults on day one cuts the links that make Obsidian useful. One vault called Personal, with a few folders inside it, is the right starting point — you can always split later, once you know what belongs apart.

How to Install Obsidian and Create Your First Vault

Install Obsidian on your computer first — the desktop app is where the editing and linking features are fastest — and add the phone app later if you want it. Obsidian runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, with companion apps for iOS and Android.

1. Go to obsidian.md and download the version for your operating system.
2. Install it like any other program, using the default settings.
3. Open Obsidian. On first launch it asks you to create or open a vault.
4. Choose Create new vault. Name it Personal, pick a location such as your Documents folder, and confirm.
5. Open the folder in your file manager. It looks empty except for a hidden .obsidian settings folder — that empty folder is your vault.

Every note you write from now on becomes a .md file sitting in that folder, which means you can back the folder up, sync it, or open the files in another text editor without asking Obsidian for permission. You own the data outright.

How to Link Notes in Obsidian

Linking is the feature that makes Obsidian different from a regular notes app. Most note apps file each note in one place, and you find it by remembering where you put it or by searching. Obsidian asks a different question: what is this note related to?

You answer by linking it there, and over time the links form a web that makes old notes findable by following a trail of related ideas.

Try it with two real notes. Click the New note button (or press Ctrl/Cmd + N) and title the first note "Reading list". Write one line under it, such as "Books I want to read this year."

Make a second note the same way and title it "Obsidian setup", with a line about what you want the app to do for you. Now go back to the "Reading list" note, start a new line, and type [[. Obsidian pops up a list of your notes.

Start typing "Obsidian", press Enter, and the link is inserted. The text reads [[Obsidian setup]] while you edit, and shows as a clickable link when you read the note. Click it and Obsidian jumps to the other note.

Now open the "Obsidian setup" note and look at the backlinks panel. It lists "Reading list" as a note that links here, even though you never edited this note to add that connection. That automatic reverse link is the engine of the whole system: every link you make is two-way, so you can arrive at a note from any note that mentions it.

Two tricks make linking fast. First, if you type [[ and the name of a note that does not exist yet, Obsidian creates it the moment you click the link — so you can link forward to ideas as they come up and fill those notes in later. Second, Obsidian also tracks unlinked mentions: places where a note's name appears as plain text but is not linked yet, which is a ready-made list of connections you have not made.

Use links when two notes clearly relate, and use them often. A note about a project can link to the meeting notes, the client, and the reading that informed it, without moving any of them into the same folder. Folders tell you roughly where a note lives; links tell you what it connects to.

How to Set Up Daily Notes in Obsidian

The single habit that keeps a vault alive is a daily note: one note per day where you capture whatever comes up, then link out from it to permanent notes. Obsidian has this built in as a core plugin, so there is nothing to install.

1. Open Settings (the gear icon, bottom-left).
2. Go to Core plugins and switch on Daily notes.
3. Still in Settings, find Daily notes in the left-hand list — it appears once the plugin is on — and set a New file location such as Daily, so daily notes file themselves in one folder.
4. Leave the date format at the default YYYY-MM-DD. It sorts chronologically in your file manager, which is exactly what you want a year from now.

The calendar-style daily note icon in the left ribbon now opens today's note, creating it if it does not exist. Use it as your inbox. Jot a thought, link it to a project note with [[, and move on.

The daily note is a low-pressure place to write, and the links you drop in it become the connective tissue that ties your scattered captures back into the structure.

Once daily notes are a habit, a template saves you from staring at a blank page each morning. Switch on the Templates core plugin in Settings, set its template folder location to Templates, and create a note inside that folder called "Daily template" with this inside:

## {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}}

### Top 3 today
- [ ]
- [ ]
- [ ]

### Captured
-

### Linked notes
-

### Tomorrow
-

To use it, open a daily note, press Ctrl/Cmd + P to open the command palette, type "Insert template", and choose "Daily template". The {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} token fills in the current date automatically. The checkboxes give you a task list, Captured is your inbox, and Linked notes is a reminder to connect today's thoughts to permanent notes with [[ before you close out.

What Folder Structure Should a Beginner Use?

Folders are optional in Obsidian, but a light structure stops a new vault from feeling like chaos. Resist the urge to build an elaborate hierarchy: four or five folders is plenty, and you can rename or merge them any time, because moving a file does not break its links. Copy this starter structure:

A simple rule helps you decide where anything belongs: use folders for where a note roughly lives, tags for what state it is in (such as #todo or #reading), and links for what it connects to. Tags are better for status labels than for topics — a note's links already say what it is about.

And make a Home note: a single note with links to your important areas, so you always have a starting page when you open the app. If you write in Markdown anywhere else, a free Markdown previewer shows you exactly how your formatting will render.

Obsidian vs Notion: Which One Fits You?

Obsidian is not a database app and does not try to be. Notion is strong at structured, shared, table-driven work: a content calendar, a client tracker, a team wiki. Obsidian is strong at personal, fast, durable thinking, where the value is in connections rather than columns.

It is also the app to pick when you want the files to outlive any single app. If you are choosing between them, this is the honest split:

Many people use both, and they do not compete so much as cover different ground: structured and collaborative work in a database tool, and personal notes, research, and idea development in Obsidian. If you want the full tour of the other side, read our Notion beginner guide — and if most of your writing lives in shared documents, our Google Docs beginner guide covers the create, format, share, and work-offline loop there. The free plan covers everything in this guide; Obsidian charges only for optional extras such as official sync and a commercial-use license.

Obsidian Plugins for Beginners: What to Turn On (and What to Skip)

Obsidian has two kinds of plugins. Core plugins are built into the app — you just switch them on. Community plugins are made by other users and installed from a catalogue of thousands.

Beginners should learn the core ones first and add community plugins only when they can name the exact problem a plugin would solve. "I need a better way to track tasks across notes" is a real reason. "Everyone recommends this plugin" is not.

When you do want a community plugin, the install path is Settings, then Community plugins. Switch off Safe Mode first — community plugins cannot run while it is on — then choose Browse, find the plugin, press Install, and press Enable.

Install one plugin at a time, use it for a week, and remove it if it does not earn its place. A vault with three plugins you understand beats a vault with thirty you do not.

Leave the graph view alone for your first month. It looks useful because it turns your notes into a map, but at the start it mostly shows that your vault is still small. Build notes for search, links, and backlinks first; the graph becomes interesting once you have fifty or more linked notes, when it starts showing lonely notes and clusters you had not noticed.

Is Obsidian Free? What Sync and Publish Cost

Yes, Obsidian is free for personal use — the core app costs nothing to download and use, with no subscription needed for anything in this guide. Its own pricing page says you are not required to buy a commercial license, but the company encourages one if you use Obsidian for work inside an organization. That is the whole price of the app itself.

Obsidian sells two optional paid add-ons. Sync is the official way to keep a vault identical across devices, and the pricing page notes that synced data is secured with AES-256 end-to-end encryption, so Obsidian itself cannot read it. Publish turns a vault into a website.

Neither is needed to follow this guide. Check obsidian.md/pricing for the current rates before you buy, and note that students, faculty, and nonprofit staff get a discount on both add-ons.

If you use Obsidian on more than one device and would rather not pay for Sync, the free routes work because the vault is just a folder: keep it inside a cloud-synced folder such as Google Drive or OneDrive, or use the community Git workflow that stores the vault in a Git repository. Whichever route you pick, keep a separate backup as well — syncing is not a backup, and a sync mistake can delete files on every device at once.

The First-Week Plan: Your First 7 Days in Obsidian

Use this setup for one week before adding more structure. The goal is not a perfect system — it is ten or fifteen linked notes and one habit that survives the week.

After that week, review what actually happened: which notes did you open twice, which folder stayed empty, which link led you somewhere useful? Shape the folders around those answers instead of guessing up front. The structure you need becomes obvious once you have real notes in the vault — it never becomes obvious while the vault is empty.

Mistakes That Make Beginners Quit Obsidian

Most people who abandon Obsidian do not fail at note-taking. They fail at setup, in the same few ways. Skip these and the app gets out of your way.

• Building the perfect system on day one. Hours spent on folders, tags, and templates before writing a single useful note. Write first; organize what exists.
• Installing twenty plugins before the first note. Every plugin is a new thing to learn and a new way for something to break. No community plugins until you can name the problem.
• Splitting into many vaults. Work, life, ideas, and reading in separate vaults means your links cannot cross — and cross-links are the point.
• Treating the graph view as organization. A pretty map is not a filing system. Search, links, and backlinks find notes; the graph only shows them.
• No backup. Local-first means the files are yours — and yours to lose. Copy the vault folder somewhere safe this week, not someday.

Obsidian rewards the boring version of itself: one vault, a few folders, notes linked as you go, and a daily note you actually open. Start small. Make two notes today, link them, and open your daily note tomorrow.

The web builds itself from there, one link at a time. If you write long notes and want to keep an eye on length, a free word counter checks the count without opening another app.

Sources

• Sébastien Dubois — "Obsidian for Beginners: The Complete Guide to Getting Started" (dsebastien.net, updated October 2026): vault definition and the .obsidian folder, local-first ownership, free and commercial-use terms, Markdown support, auto-save, and the graph view.
• Automate My Life — "How to Use Obsidian: Beginner's Guide (2026)" (automatemylife.blog, updated August 3, 2026): the starter loop, the one-vault rule, daily notes setup, the templates plugin, and Obsidian vs Notion.
• iGeeksBlog — "If Obsidian is confusing, start with this simple setup" (igeeksblog.com, published May 20, 2026): the first-week workflow, the terms table, backlinks and unlinked mentions, the plugin rule, and the graph view warning.
• Obsidian — "Pricing" (obsidian.md/pricing, checked October 28, 2026): commercial license not required for personal use, Sync secured with AES-256 end-to-end encryption, and education and nonprofit discounts on Sync and Publish.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Obsidian really free?

Yes, for personal use. The core app is free to download and use, with no subscription needed for anything in this guide. Obsidian's pricing page says you are not required to buy a commercial license, though the company encourages one if you use Obsidian for work inside an organization.

Sync and Publish are optional paid add-ons — the first keeps a vault identical across devices, the second publishes notes as a website.

Do I need to know Markdown to use Obsidian?

No. Obsidian shows a live preview, so you can format text with the toolbar or a few simple symbols and see the result immediately. The basics take minutes: double asterisks around a word make it bold, a hash makes a heading, a dash makes a list item.

Learning them pays off because the same syntax works in many other tools, and your notes stay readable as plain text even outside Obsidian.

What is the difference between Obsidian and Notion?

Obsidian stores your notes as plain Markdown files in a folder on your device; Notion stores them in a cloud database. Obsidian is best for personal, fast, durable thinking where the value is in connections between notes, while Notion is best for structured, shared, table-driven work such as a content calendar or a team wiki. Many people use both — Obsidian for thinking, Notion for shared work.

How do daily notes work in Obsidian?

Daily notes are a built-in core plugin: switch it on in Settings under Core plugins, set a folder such as Daily for the files, and the calendar icon in the ribbon opens today's note, creating it if it does not exist. The default date format is YYYY-MM-DD, which sorts chronologically in your file manager. Use the note as a capture inbox, then link out from it to permanent notes.

Can I sync Obsidian between my phone and computer for free?

The official route, Obsidian Sync, is a paid add-on. The free routes work because a vault is just a folder: keep it inside a cloud-synced folder such as Google Drive or OneDrive, or use the community Git workflow. Either way, keep a separate backup too — syncing is not a backup, and a sync mistake can remove files on every device at once.