To facilitate the ongoing creation of Shortcuts for writing in Obsidian Daily Notes, this process will be encapsulated in a dedicated Shortcut. Initially, these shortcuts were crafted offline during a flight without internet access.

Subsequently, I explored whether Apple offered a more efficient method to interface with Obsidian and discovered Actions for Obsidian. However, since this application does not operate in the background (with the phone locked), I decided to continue working directly with .md files.

If you're in a hurry and prefer a quick solution, feel free to use the following link to access my shortcut directly.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Create a shortcut by clicking on "+"

    Open the application

  2. Here is a working board where we will create actions and set up a title.

    New shortcut board

  3. Need to rename the shortcut and set up an icon.

    Rename shortcut

  4. Now we can start creating the shortcuts. Click [+] Add Action to proceed.

    Add new step

  5. Search for "Text" in the actions list and click on it.

    Add text action

  6. Here is the first action in the shortcut.

    First action
    Obsidian Requirements: My Obsidian notes are synchronized across devices using a shared iCloud folder. You can find the configuration details here if you haven't set this up yet.

  7. Insert the input variable into the text box by clicking inside it and then swiping left to select "Shortcut input."

    Add input variable

  8. With the input now ready, we can proceed to save it to a file.

    Shortcut input ready

  9. Incorporate the "Append to Text File" action.

    Append to text file

  10. To save the daily notes in the correct folder, click on "Shortcuts" to locate it.

    Replace folder

  11. In my situation, I had to access the Shared folder, navigate to the Obsidian folder, and then proceed to the log folder. Similarly, you will need to locate your specific folder for daily notes.

    Select folder

  12. Once you've located the correct folder, click the "Open" button.

    Click open in folder

  13. Insert the Current Date variable into the text box.

    Specify file name

  14. Append the .md extension.

    Add md extension

  15. Click on the Current Date variable to select the desired format.

    Select day format

  16. I opted for the ISO 8601 file format, which appears as "2024-02-18," with "None" selected for Time Format.

    Select file format

  17. To conclude the action correctly, locate and select the "Stop and Output" action.

    Stop and output

  18. Additionally, ensure the shortcut is executed with an input. To ensure this, choose "Stop and Respond" for the first action in cases where there's no input.

    Stop and respond

  19. We have successfully completed the shortcut setup.

    Error message step

We now have a dedicated function that allows us to append any input to the current daily note. These detailed instructions should assist you in efficiently utilizing Apple Shortcuts, saving you time in your workflow.

This is part of a series on utilizing the Shortcuts App:

  1. Set up a Shortcut to append text to the current DailyNote in Obsidian (this article)
  2. Create a Shortcut to retrieve information about today's meetings
  3. Establish an automation to execute Apple Shortcuts daily

← Back to Blog