Obsidian Project Manager Obsidian PM

Importing existing notes

You don’t have to start fresh. If your vault already has notes that represent work — meeting actions, follow-ups, drafts, project briefs — you can pull them into Project Manager as tasks (or convert a note into a project) without losing any content.

Import notes as tasks

Use this when you have one or more markdown notes that you’d like to track as tasks inside a project.

Run the command

Open the command palette and run Import notes as tasks.

  • If a project is currently open, the import goes into that project.
  • If no project is open, you’ll be asked to pick one first.

Phase 1 — pick the notes

A modal opens listing every markdown file in your vault.

  • Search — type in the top input to filter by filename or folder.
  • Check the box next to each note you want to import.
  • Select all selects every note currently matching the search.
  • The counter at the top right shows how many you’ve picked.

Click Next when the selection looks right.

Phase 2 — set defaults

For all the notes you’re importing, pick:

  • Default status — the status every new task starts in (usually todo).
  • Default priority — medium by default.
  • File handling:
    • Move to tasks folder (default) — the original file is moved into the project’s _tasks/ folder and rewritten as a task.
    • Copy (keep original) — leaves your original note alone and creates a new task file.

Click Import.

What happens to each note

For every selected file:

  1. The plugin reads the body and frontmatter.
  2. It creates a new task with:
    • Title = the filename (without .md)
    • Description = the body of the note
    • Status and priority from the defaults you picked
  3. The task file is written into the project’s _tasks/ folder.
  4. If you chose Move, the original is moved there and overwritten with the new task YAML. If you chose Copy, the original stays put.

What gets skipped

A note is skipped if it already has pm-task: true in its frontmatter — it’s already a task, so importing it again would be a duplicate. The import summary at the end tells you how many were imported and how many were skipped.

What’s not preserved

The import is intentionally simple — it captures the title and the body. Existing frontmatter (other than pm-task detection) is replaced with task YAML. If your notes have metadata you care about, copy it into the task description or a custom field after import.

Turn a note into a project

The import flow above creates tasks. If you have a note that should be a whole project instead, the workflow is manual:

  1. Open the note.
  2. Add this to the top of the file (above any existing content): 
    ---
pm-project: true
id: "<any unique string>"
title: "<Project title>"
icon: "📌"
color: "#888888"
teamMembers: []
customFields: []
createdAt: "2026-05-24T00:00:00.000Z"
updatedAt: "2026-05-24T00:00:00.000Z"
---
  3. Save the file.
  4. Run Open current file as project from the command palette while the file is active. The plugin switches the view to the project pane.
  5. From there, use Import notes as tasks to pull related notes in as tasks.

Note: Project Manager doesn’t auto-add the pm-project marker for you — the command only opens files that already have it. This keeps the plugin from claiming notes you didn’t intend to convert.

The simpler path, if your “project note” is small: create a fresh project via + new project, then paste the original note’s content into the project file’s body (below the ## Tasks heading the plugin maintains).

Where to go next

  • Vault layout — see where imported files end up.
  • Bulk operations — clean up status, priority, or tags across the imported batch.
  • Custom fields — add fields to capture metadata from your old notes.

Tips

Before a big import, make a backup (or commit your vault to git). The “move” option rewrites the original file with task YAML — it’s not destructive, but it’s not trivially reversible either.

Run Bulk operations right after importing: select all the new tasks, set tags or due dates in one go, instead of editing each one.

If you’re importing dozens of files, expect the modal to take a second to load — it scans every .md file in your vault to build the picker.