A floating, transparent desktop graph for your Obsidian vault. The widget runs as an Electron app, stays on top of your desktop, and can be click-through by default so it does not get in the way.

• Full graph view for all notes in your vault
• Local graph mode for a selected note and its direct neighbors
• Focus mode for the current note, backlinks, and recently edited notes
• Transparent, always-on-top desktop window
• Click-through mode with an interact toggle
• Live node drag, zoom, and pan
• Hover tooltips with link count, recency, and tags
• Saves your selected vault path between sessions

This repository is the Electron app folder. These files need to stay together in the same folder:

obsidian-desktop-widget/
|-- main.js              # Electron main process
|-- preload.js           # Secure bridge between Electron and the UI
|-- package.json         # Node/Electron dependencies and scripts
|-- package-lock.json    # Locked dependency versions
|-- src/
|   |-- index.html       # App UI
|   `-- renderer.js      # Graph rendering and vault parsing logic
|-- launch.bat           # Windows launcher helper
|-- launch.vbs           # Windows no-console launcher helper
`-- create-shortcut.ps1  # Optional Windows shortcut script

Do not copy only src/ or only the Electron files somewhere else. Run npm install and npm start from the folder that contains package.json, main.js, and preload.js.

node_modules/ is intentionally not included in GitHub. It is recreated locally by running npm install.

• Node.js 18 or newer
• npm, included with Node.js
• An Obsidian vault folder containing Markdown files

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/adityagahlot/obsidian-desktop-widget.git
cd obsidian-desktop-widget

Install dependencies:

npm install

Start the Electron app:

npm start

On first launch, choose your Obsidian vault folder when prompted.

If npm install finishes but npm start fails because Electron did not download correctly, you can install the Electron binary manually.

First, check the Electron version used by this project:

Get-Content node_modules\electron\package.json

Look for the version field.

Then:

1. Go to Electron releases.
2. Find the release that matches the version in node_modules\electron\package.json.
3. Download the Windows x64 zip file named like electron-vXX.X.X-win32-x64.zip.
4. Unzip it.
5. Place the unzipped contents inside this folder:

node_modules\electron\dist\

The folder should contain electron.exe directly inside dist.

Finally, create this file:

node_modules\electron\path.txt

Put only this text inside it:

electron.exe

Then run:

npm start

If you download the project as a ZIP from GitHub:

1. Extract the ZIP.
2. Open a terminal inside the extracted folder that contains package.json.
3. Run npm install.
4. Run npm start.

If you see a nested folder after extracting, open the inner project folder before running the commands.

When click-through mode is active, desktop clicks pass through the widget. Switch to Interact mode when you want to drag nodes, click controls, or move around the graph.

Package for the current platform:

npm run build

Windows installer:

npm run build:win

macOS DMG:

npm run build:mac

Build output is written to dist/.

The widget scans Markdown files recursively and extracts:

• [[wikilinks]] for graph edges
• #tags and frontmatter tags for node styling
• File modified times for recency highlighting

Your vault data stays on your machine. The app does not need an internet connection to read your notes.