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For those curious, this feature is just now publicly launching and before it was only available to people who paid for early access.
The Reddit thread has some good discussion about the feature
https://old.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1mtxh52/obsidia...
On a side note, the docs don't seem to mention if this is possible but does anyone know how to use a template or set a default frontmatter (like created date) when using the "new" button in a Base?
The solution I used before bases is eh... pretty hacky.
```meta-bind-js-view {memory^inputText} as title --- const toShow = context.bound.title || "TKTK"; const str = `\`\`\`meta-bind-button label: New Project Idea - ${toShow} icon: "" hidden: false class: "" tooltip: "" id: "" style: primary actions: - type: templaterCreateNote templateFile: Templates/Project.md folderPath: Project Ideas fileName: ${toShow} openNote: true \`\`\``; return engine.markdown.create(str) ```
Is there a good AI plugin for Obsidian yet?
for those (like me) who didn't understand the feature :
a base is a table where each row is a specific file in your vault, and each column is a proprety of this file.
Using a base you can manage, sort and filter your files and their propreties (ex add a rating, price, or deadline proprety to your files or only show files from my movie folder where my proprety is set to [this])
The base doesn't DO anything you couldn't do by hand, it just allows you to do it faster, as you could always modify a file propreties by hand in that file, or search for it using the search features.
The propreties you add are stored in plain text on top of your markdown files The base is stored in a very readable format similar to yaml to the .base file you can see in obsidian.
Here is the generated .base file for a test Movies folder : views: - type: table name: Movies filters: and: - file.folder == "All/Movies" order: - file.name - tags - Watch Date columnSize: file.name: 167
like "dimensions", so to speak
I found this out today when I went to go use it. To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed. I thought they’d be like tables on steroids.
I think there was (probably still is) a plugin that did something similar to bases that I tried before and didn’t really like conceptually.
I don't think they do that good a job of explaining what it is, but the Reddit post linked below included this comment which is helptful: "You know how when you search your notes for something, say a phrase? Well, Bases can basically hold a static search that automatically updates. And, instead of searching all over again, you just click into the Bases file and new notes are just there in the default table format.
On top of that, you can add other properties to the view, especially one like modified date, which updates every time you modify the file. This is useful for seeing which files you haven't looked at in a while. Old concepts often apply to new ones, but we sometimes forget to check back to make that connection explicit."
The first sentence of the documentation already says it: "turn any set of notes into a powerful database". It's really just that, basically. It's a database-view, where the vault is the database and the rows are your files. There is a fancy GUI for creating views, and it seems there is the ability for live-editing data from within the view. Basically a more user-friendly replacement for the very popular dataview-plugin.
Maybe it's a bit harder to understand, as it's a more mushy than the usual relational database.
Another one: "Bases provides filtered and sortable table and card views of note Properties and Tags."
Related and Bases description: https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel/76...
> The idea is that you can store properties, or metadata about the current file, in Obsidian notes. For example, if I have a note about Decoder, I might put the name of the host and a list of episodes. For each episode that I want to take notes on, I might write down which guests were on, what date it came out, or the episode number. What Bases allows you to do is visualize a certain kind of note as a table or eventually as a Kanban view or another type of view. So, it’s like a visualization layer on top of the data that you already have. We just make it really easy to create that database from the bottom up.
> It’s kind of like a backward database because all the data is already in there. You’re just looking at it and saying, “Show me all notes that have the ‘books’ tag,” for example, or a link to “Casey.” Then, I get a table and then I have all my metadata, which I can edit. It’s quite powerful if you’re someone who enjoys tracking books that you read, or the movies that you watch, the places that you go, the articles you’ve read. You can very easily create these structures or do project management.
Yeah it could have a better explanation. I added like three bases and always just got a list of "file name" and was wondering how to add different data. Was expecting something like MS access based on markdown tables. Maybe if the documentation would have an example of how you would create a collection of documents and then have a view on that with a base it would be clearer.
> And, instead of searching all over again, you just click into the Bases file and new notes are just there in the default table format.
Sounds like a View.
This seems useful for folks who use Obsidian as a personal CRM. I got some queries with data view that I'm going to see if this can replace:
https://blacksmithgu.github.io/obsidian-dataview/
I often want to answer questions like:
- When was the last time I chatted with this person - What did we talk about - Who haven't I spoken to in a while
This seems distinctly in opposition to what I believe makes Obsidian a great program, providing an excellent editing environment and extensibility for markdown. The more it ventures into these types of features, the more they're going to lose to applications that designed for this from day dot, like Notion and Anytype.
I’m an Obsidian user. I pay for Obsidian sync, and I love the philosophy behind their product. However, and I feel stupid for saying this, but I just find it confusing to use. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around plugins, and understanding how it wants me to use it.
For now, I’m just sticking to using it for daily notes, but I feel there’s so much I’m missing.
Is there a way in Obsidian to have a virtual file separator like `---` in yaml documents?
For bases to work I need to split my stuff up into tiny documents but I'd prefer to have one big document with separate sections. For example I keep one document `book-recommendations.md` with many small sections for books I'd like to read. I can't search through that with bases unless I split those out into many small files in with one recommendation each.
I'll be checking this out. I've used Dataview in the past, and while it has some great functionality, it's a bit too clumsy for my taste and it has a learning curve. Hopefully this resolves some of those issues.
I've been using bases (in beta) for a month or so for the vault I keep for the notes for each of the (many) D&D/ttrpg campaigns I play in, and it's really made it a ton easier to get an overview of e.g. the many different NPCs we meet and interact with, and the relevant info (name/pronouns/pic/race/class/etc) all in one place.
The Obsidian dev team has been really responsive to feedback from those of us in the beta, and I'd encourage people to look at the changelog to see that in action (e.g. changing the syntax to be more object oriented, smoothing over UI issues, etc)
I found one previous thread. Others?
Obsidian Bases - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44058972 - May 2025 (13 comments)
A feature I have always missed in Obsidian is the continuous journal view from Logseq. How hard could it be to display the journal all on one page.
I even started just writing the daily journal all in one file because that gives me that but it's starting to get a little big.
I tried Bases out but it's not suited for my uses. One issue I have with Bases, for any useful piece of information to be tracked underneath one subject -- you have to shard the data into tiny files which can then be used in the table.
Say you're setting up a media log of your engagements and you want to track completed season for a show-- if you're doing a handful of shows, this isn't a big deal. Over 100 shows, averaging 4 seasons -- that's 400 "completions", one file each. Plus another 100 files for the media metadata itself. That's 500 files that can be simply represented by 500 lines of a spreadsheet, even if you're duplicating title, year, etc. over and over.
The sharding of data into tiny files is what makes it difficult to use anywhere outside of Obsidian. If Obsidian Bases used the full power of YAML front-matter data properly, that'd be SO much better.
It's still faster, more efficient to use a spreadsheet. For anything more than what a spreadsheet can handle-- I would use SQLite.
Wow, I remember when this feature was planned/announced. It's great to see first class support for the Dataview-type workflows.
I hope the API has support to allow extensions---I see that it is on the Roadmap[0].
I'm particularly interested to see how this integrates with Canvas and other note types.
Have been using Obsidian for a lot of stuff ( https://bryanhogan.com/tags/obsidian ), from writing posts for various websites of mine to personal knowledge management.
Very happy that Bases is officially launching. My experience so far has been great. It can definitely replace the "Projects" plugin for me, maybe the "Dataview" plugin as well? Hope it can rival Notion Databases in the future, e.g. by adding a Kanban view.
So where does the data "live"? I was looking at the syntax, it defines predicates for filters and views and so on, but I don't see the "rows". There is this `file.name` and `file.ext` thing - but where do you set them? What type of file does it point to? CSV? JSON? Something else? The docs seem incomplete.
I see a lot of complaints about scope creep and vision drift here, so I'll add a different perspective: I use Notion right now, but have been considering a switch to Obsidian for a while now (variety of reasons, chief among them a desire to reduce my own dependence on US-based tech platforms and tools).
The lack of something like Notion databases / tables was the last thing stopping me from migrating over; I found this feature really helpful for organizing my thoughts and tasks as I want them organized, and not having it would have been a noticeable UX regression for me.
With this launch, I'll take a deeper look. It's that simple: it provides a feature many want, largely because it's seen as a killer feature of comparable closed platforms.
A little off topic but I've always wondered why Ms office doesn't allow embedding of excel cells within word/powerpoint and then allowing reference to certain cells within word with some syntax. That would unlock a lot of new ways to create reactive presentations and word documents.
Is this essentially an official replacement for the Dataview plugin? Last time I used Obsidian was 2 years ago
This is slick.
Does anyone know what JS library (presumably) they are using to display, filter, sort the table?
I just started using Obsidian. What is the best way to use Obsidian both on your phone as well as your PC/laptop? I use it within git and google drive. How can I sync it most easily to my phone as well?
As much as I like the idea of Obsidian, I just can't get over all the additional functionality that Notion provides due to the integrated nature of it.
In particular, I love how you select text/blocks in Notion and how every line is a "block". I really wish other editors did that as well. In fact, it's probably the main reason why I haven't moved away from Notion.
Obsidian is great, but it's no substitute for a text editor. It's more like a power user's Microsoft Office suite which operates on folders rather than files. Case and point: you can't even open plaintext files (.txt).
Also, I'm still waiting for the org mode comment from a seasoned emacs user. :)
Neat. I haven't been using Obsidian for a couple years now, but this will probably get me to give it another try.
Thought this could be a full replacement for Dataview but it’s just not there yet.
I love the dataview flexibility and multiple display options.
I’ve moved my Chinese vocab list to Bases (I already had all data in front matter so it was easy) and it’s much much nicer and faster than Dataview
However, for task lists, Dataview still works better imo
Are there any good LLM plugins for Obsidian, beyond just throwing Claude Code / Codex at your markdown folder?
One thing I still need is the ability to paste screenshots in-line in notes easily, like how OneNote handles it.
This is awesome. It’s exactly what I needed at the right time.
Is it possible to embed `Bases` in existing notes? Or do they always have to be standalone files?
Currently I have lots of files with embedded Dataview queries in files. I’d like to replicate that with this new functionality.
Great idea, but the feature is poorly implemented. Cannot select multiple cells/rows. I have no idea how to extend past 20 or so rows. I regret having started transferring one of my documents to Obsidian Bases.
I've used obsidian for years but if you want more db in your PKM then Siyuan is honestly a much better (albeit newer) option
It's also open source, unlike obsidian which is proprietary
I hope more programs use ".base" files for database views – it runs a lot of workflows in Notion that would benefit from a diversity of implementations.
I've been using the 'DB Folder' and 'Dataview' plugins, I'll definitely look into this new option. Does it work with Dataview at all?
So it seems like Bases is an official and more userfriendly version of the community plugin Dataview.
How does it compare to the table view of a Logseq query? Is UI the main added value? Is it possible to build a base of content blocks rather than notes?
This would really benefit from a 10-15 minute video demo building up a simple example use case in a similar style to how dhh previews rails.
Neat! Is the 'import from notion' functionality able to convert Notion databases to this?
Yes!
No more need to evaluate AnyType or similar apps.
Obsidian rocks.
I really want Obsidian with Neo4j as the backend storage and full cypher query support.
Thanks for this submission. I use Obsidian but I wasn't aware of this feature.
This one-file-one-record approach to databases somehow makes me feel strange.
I hope Obsidian has a headless SDK running outside Obsidian that allows devs to read the vault and do various analysis and automation. With this kind of structured data there are a lot of potential use cases. The obsidian binary limitation is a roadblock there.