aliases:
  - front matter
  - Advanced topics/YAML front matter
  - metadata
  - property
cssclasses:
  - soft-embed
permalink: properties

Properties

Properties allow you to organize information about a note. Properties contain structured data such as text, links, dates, checkboxes, and numbers. Properties can also be used in combination with Community plugins that can do useful things with your structured data.

Add properties to a note

There are several ways to add a property to a note:

Use the Add file property command.
Use the Cmd/Ctrl+; hotkey.
Choose Add file property from the More actions menu (brought up by the three dots icon or by right-clicking the tab).
Type --- at the very beginning of a file.

Once you add a property, a row will appear at the top of the file with two inputs: the property name and the property value.

For the name, you can choose anything you like. Obsidian provides several default properties: tags, cssclasses, and aliases.

Once you choose the property name, you can give it a value.

Property types

In addition to a name and value, properties also have a type. A property's type describes the kind of values it can store. To change the type of a property, click the property's icon or use the Edit file property command.

Obsidian supports the following property types:

Text
List
Number
Checkbox
Date
Date & time

Once a property type is assigned to a property, all properties with that name are assumed to have the same property type.

Advanced uses

Links

Text and List type properties can contain URLs and Internal links using the [[Link]] syntax.

Search properties

Properties have their own search syntax that you can use alongside other search terms and operators. See search syntax for properties.

Templates

You can add properties to Plugins/Templates. When you insert a template into the active note, all the properties from the template will be added to the note. Obsidian will also merge any properties that exist in your note with properties in the template.

Rename properties

You can rename a property by right-clicking it in the All properties view.

Display modes

You can change how properties are displayed in your note by going to Settings → Editor → Properties in document. The options are:

Visible (default) — displays properties at the top of the note, if there are any.
Hidden — hides properties, can still be displayed in the sidebar via Properties view.
Source — displays properties in plain text YAML format.

CSS snippets

You can use CSS snippets to change the appearance of specific notes.

Not supported

A few features are not supported in Obsidian:

Nested properties — to view nested properties, we recommend using the Source display.
Bulk-editing properties — this can be achieved with bulk-editing tools like VSCode, scripts, and community plugins.
Markdown in properties — this is an intentional limitation as properties are meant for small, atomic bits of information that are both human and machine readable.

Hotkeys

Add a property

Action	Hotkey
Add new property	`Cmd + ;`

Navigate between properties

When a property is focused

Action	Hotkey
Focus next property	`Down arrow` or `Tab`
Focus previous property	`Up arrow` or `Shift+Tab`
Jump to editor	`Alt+Down arrow`

Select properties

Action	Hotkey
Extend selection upwards	`Shift+Up arrow`
Extend selection downwards	`Shift+Down arrow`
Select all	`Cmd+A`

Edit properties

Action	Hotkey
Edit property name	`Left arrow`
Edit property value	`Right arrow`
Focus property	`Escape`
Delete property	`Cmd+Backspace` if any properties are selected, it will delete the selection instead.
Undo	`Cmd+Z`
Redo	`Cmd+Shift+Z`

Vim (advanced)

Action	Hotkey
Move down	`j`
Move up	`k`
Focus key	`h`
Focus value	`l`
Focus value (Cursor at end)	`A`
Focus value (Cursor at beginning)	`i`
Create new property	`o`

Property format

Properties are stored in YAML format at the top of the file. YAML is a popular format that is easy for both humans and computers to read.

Property names are separated from their values by a colon followed by a space:

---
name: value
---

While the order of each name-value pair doesn't matter, each name must be unique within a note. For example, you can't have more than one tags property.

Values can be text, numbers, true or false, or even collections of values (arrays).

---
title: A New Hope # This is a text property
year: 1977
favorite: true
cast: # This is a list property
  - Mark Hamill
  - Harrison Ford
  - Carrie Fisher
---

Internal links in Text and List type properties must be surrounded with quotes. Obsidian will automatically add these if you manually enter internal links into properties, but be careful to add them when using templating plugins.

---
link: "[[Link]]"
linklist:
  - "[[Link]]"
  - "[[Link2]]"
---

Number type properties must always be a literal number, not an expression with operators. Integers and decimals are both allowed.

---
year: 1977
pie: 3.14
---

Checkbox type properties are either true or false. An empty property will be treated as false. In Live Preview, this will be represented as a checkbox.

---
favorite: true
reply: false
last: # this will default to false

Date and Date & time type properties are stored in the following format:

---
date: 2020-08-21
time: 2020-08-21T10:30:00
---

The date picker follows your operating system's default date and time format. You can change it in your system preferences:

Windows

Mac OS

With the Daily notes plugin enabled, the date property will additionally function as an internal link to the corresponding daily note for that date.

daily-notes-and-date-properties.png#interface

JSON Properties

While we recommend using YAML to define properties, you can also define properties using JSON:

---
{
  "tags": "journal",
  "publish": false
}
---

Note that the JSON block will be read, interpreted, and saved as YAML.

Default properties

Obsidian comes with a set of default properties:

Property	Description
`tags`	See Tags.
`aliases`	See Aliases.
`cssclasses`	Allows you to style individual notes using CSS snippets.

Properties for Obsidian Publish

The following properties can be used with Obsidian Publish:

Property	Description
`publish`	See Automatically select notes to publish.
`permalink`	See Permalinks.
`description`	See Description.
`image`	See Image.
`cover`	See Image.

Deprecated properties

These properties were deprecated in Obsidian 1.4. Please do not use them anymore:

Property	Description
`tag`	Deprecated alias for `tags`.
`alias`	Deprecated alias for `aliases`.
`cssclass`	Deprecated alias for `cssclasses`.