Move from Obsidian to Clarity Atlas
Obsidian and Clarity Atlas both keep your notes as plain Markdown files you own, so moving between them is a copy, not a conversion. The importer reads your Obsidian vault and writes a copy into Clarity Atlas — your Obsidian vault is never modified. You can keep using Obsidian on the original for as long as you like.
Before you start
- Tidy nothing. The importer takes the vault exactly as it is.
- Closing Obsidian is not required. The import only reads from the vault.
- Know where your vault folder is. In Obsidian, Settings → About shows the vault path. On Android it is usually under Documents, or in an Obsidian folder on internal storage.
On Windows
- Open Clarity Atlas and go to Settings → Import.
- Choose 📥 Import an Obsidian vault…
- Pick your vault folder — the one that contains the
.obsidianfolder. - Wait for the counter to finish. A summary shows how many notes and attachments were imported.
Installing Clarity Atlas for the first time? The setup wizard offers Import an Obsidian vault… as well, so you can bring your notes across before you write anything new.
On Android
- Go to Settings → Import.
- Choose 📥 Import an Obsidian vault…
- The system folder picker opens. Choose your vault folder.
- The vault is copied into Clarity Atlas. The original stays where it is.
A large vault takes longer on a phone than on a PC. Keep the app open until the summary appears.
What comes across
| In Obsidian | In Clarity Atlas |
|---|---|
| Folders | The same tree, under a folder named after your vault |
| Note names | Become note titles |
| Frontmatter properties | Kept — tags, aliases, and anything custom |
| Created and modified dates | Taken from frontmatter when present, otherwise from the file dates |
[[Wikilinks]], including [[Note|alias]] and [[Note#Heading]] | Stay exactly as written, and are clickable |
Images, PDFs and audio embedded with ![[file]] or  | Copied alongside the note |
![[Note]] transclusions | Become plain [[Note]] links |
Markdown links to other notes, like [text](Note.md) | Become wikilinks |
What to expect
- Each imported note gets two small properties added to its copy — an
idand atitle— so it syncs and behaves like every other note. Obsidian ignores them. - Headings, code blocks, tables, quotes and callouts render the way you expect, and stay exactly as you wrote them in the file.
.canvasfiles, Dataview queries, templates and community plugins don't carry over.- The
.obsidiansettings folder and.trashare skipped. - Files no note references are left behind. The summary says how many.
- Importing the same vault twice creates a second copy under
<Vault>-2.
Keep using both
The copy stays Obsidian-readable. On Windows, point Obsidian at the notes/<Vault> folder inside your Clarity Atlas vault folder if you want to edit there too — Clarity Atlas picks up outside edits when you tap ↻ Refresh in Browse, or on its next launch. Let Clarity Atlas handle moves and deletes, though: it keeps the sync markers that tell your other devices what happened. This is desktop only — on Android the Clarity Atlas vault is private to the app.
Undo
Changed your mind? Delete the imported folder in Browse. Recently deleted holds it for 30 days, so nothing is lost if you want it back.
That's the whole move — a few minutes, and Obsidian is exactly as you left it. Still weighing the two? The comparison lays out where each one fits.
© 2026 Clarity Atlas LLC. Obsidian is a trademark of Dynalist Inc.; Clarity Atlas is not affiliated with Obsidian. This guide describes the importer as of August 2026.