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Notion to Obsidian Migration: A Complete Guide & Checklist

The shift from Notion to Obsidian represents a growing trend among knowledge workers and note-taking enthusiasts seeking more control over their digital notebooks. While Notion excels at team collaboration and structured databases, Obsidian offers a local-first approach with powerful linking capabilities that appeal to those building personal knowledge systems. The migration is often driven by desires for better privacy, offline access, and the ability to create more organic connections between notes. If you're considering making this transition, this comprehensive guide will walk you through the process step by step.

Pre-Migration Checklist

1. Evaluate Your Current Setup

2. Assess Obsidian Compatibility

3. Prepare Your Environment

Migration Process

Now that everything is ready, we can now proceed to the migration, you can either follow this guide or follow the importer plugin directly.

Importer Plugin

Step 1: Export from Notion

1. Navigate to Settings & Members
2. Select Settings
3. Scroll to "Export all workspace content"
4. Choose HTML format (important!)
5. Enable "Include subpages"
6. Enable "Create folders for subpages"
7. Wait for export completion

Step 2: Import into Obsidian

1. Open Obsidian Importer plugin
2. Select "Notion (.zip)" format
3. Choose your export file
4. Select destination folder
5. Enable "Save parent pages in subfolders"
6. Start import process

Step 3: Post-Import Organization

1. Review imported content
2. Fix formatting issues
3. Reorganize folder structure
4. Update internal links
5. Verify media attachments

Essential Obsidian Setup

Core Settings to Configure

  • Editor:

    • Enable/disable live preview

    • Set preferred line width

    • Configure spellcheck

  • Files & Links:

    • Choose link format

    • Set default location for new notes

    • Configure attachment handling

  1. Core Plugins:

    • File explorer

    • Search

    • Quick switcher

    • Graph view

    • Backlinks

    • Tags pane

  2. Community Plugins:

We also recommend you to check the Border Theme for Obsidian.

Border Theme

We also recommend you check out this ready-made template called Obsibrain, which comes with a lot of useful pre-configured utils that will help you migrate from Notion.

Obsibrain pre-configured vault.

Best Practices for Success

Gradual Migration

  1. Start with most-used notes

  2. Migrate one project at a time

  3. Keep Notion as backup initially

  4. Test workflows before full switch

Remember that the migration process is a marathon, not a sprint. Take time to learn Obsidian's features and adapt your workflow gradually.

Focus on maintaining a system that works for you rather than perfectly replicating your Notion setup.

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