What settings should I change first in Obsidian?

Turn on automatic updating of internal links under Files and links, so renaming a note does not break links to it. Then set a default folder for attachments so images and PDFs do not fill your sidebar. Nick Milo recommends both in this video.

Should I import my old notes into Obsidian?

Nick Milo advises against dumping old notes into a new vault. A middle path works for many people: import them into one archive folder, leave them unlinked and search them when needed. What usually fails is trying to reorganize thousands of imported notes at once.

Does Obsidian have built-in AI?

The core Obsidian app has no built-in AI. You can add it with community plugins or by giving an AI assistant access to the vault folder, since notes are plain Markdown files. Back up the vault before trying any tool that can edit files.

All video notes

Video notes · Notes and PKM

Give Me 15 Minutes. I'll Teach You 80% of Obsidian

Video by Linking Your Thinking with Nick Milo on YouTube · 15 min · uploaded September 2025

Notes and analysis by BrainTube, written from the video. Not affiliated with Linking Your Thinking with Nick Milo. Watch on YouTube

In short

Nick Milo's crash course covers what an Obsidian vault is, how links and backlinks work, two settings to change on day one, the common beginner mistakes, the core hotkeys and his ACE folder scheme. It is an accurate, efficient tour for a new user. Its advice not to import old notes is too absolute, and its short AI section leaves out most of what matters when you connect an assistant to a vault.

The argument

Milo argues that Obsidian is worth choosing if you want low-friction capture, linking between ideas and a local, plain-text format you own. Most of its value comes from a small set of features: a vault that is just a folder of Markdown files, double-bracket links with backlinks and a graph view, a few settings that prevent broken links and clutter, and hotkeys that make writing fast. Structure should be added slowly, starting with a few large folders, maps of content instead of many tags, and a daily note for quick capture. AI is something you add on your own terms, with backups and a clear line between your writing and generated text.

Key ideas, with timestamps

0:30
A vault is a folder of Markdown
He shows the vault as a plain folder on his desktop and opens the same note in TextEdit, VS Code, Ulysses and iA Writer. If Obsidian disappeared, the notes would still open. Sync is your choice: any cloud folder such as Dropbox, or the paid Obsidian Sync with end-to-end encryption and version history.
1:30
A small team and a large user base
He says Obsidian has a seven-person team and does not track installs, with the CEO estimating 5 to 10 million users. Those figures are as of the September 2025 upload. The point he draws is privacy: the company does not watch what you do.
3:30
Linking as you write
Typing two left brackets creates a link to an existing or new note. A link to a note that does not exist yet still appears in the graph as a lighter placeholder dot, and clicking it with Cmd or Ctrl creates the note. The backlinks pane at 5:30 shows every note that links to the one you are reading, with context.
5:45
Two settings to change first
Under Files and links, turn on automatic updating of internal links so renaming a note does not break links to it; he shows the notice that links were updated in two files. Then set a default attachments folder so images and PDFs do not clutter the sidebar. He also recommends the Anuppuccin theme as a base for his own look.
7:00
Four beginner mistakes
Do not dump thousands of notes from your old app into the vault. Do not install plugins such as Dataview dashboards, kanban boards or advanced tables on day one. Do not build a deep folder tree for ideas, because one idea fits several categories and "structure must be earned". And learn hotkeys early.
8:30
The hotkeys and Markdown that matter
He runs through bold and italic shortcuts, headings with pound signs, highlight with double equals, quote blocks, lists, checklists, dividers and code. An exclamation mark before a note link embeds that note. Cmd or Ctrl plus P opens the command palette, and Cmd or Ctrl plus O opens the quick switcher for jumping to any note.
11:00
ACE, maps of content and daily notes
His folder scheme is Atlas for lasting ideas, Calendar for time-based notes and Efforts for projects and tasks. He prefers maps of content, notes that link related notes into a hub, over tags. A daily note in the Calendar area is his place for quick thoughts that get linked out later.
12:30
Attachments, properties, Bases and Canvas
Notes can hold images, PDFs, voice memos from the audio recorder core plugin and embedded YouTube videos. Properties, added with Cmd or Ctrl plus semicolon, store fields like dates and checkboxes outside the body. Bases turns those properties into sortable views, and Canvas is a whiteboard for arranging notes and cards.

What it gets right

The two settings at 5:45 are the most useful minute in the video. Broken links after a rename and a sidebar full of pasted images are the two problems new users hit first, and both are fixed with a toggle.

The warning against deep folders is also sound. Ideas do not sit in one category, and forcing them into a tree leads to the decision fatigue he describes at 10:30. A few large buckets plus links and the quick switcher cover most navigation.

Holding off on plugins is good advice. Dashboards built on Dataview look impressive, but they are a project in themselves, and they make the vault harder to move to another tool later.

Where the advice is too simple

Importing old notes. "Start fresh" helps if the goal is a clean thinking space, but years of meeting notes and research are not clutter just because they are old. A better rule: import the archive into a single folder, keep it out of your linked notes and pull from it when a search turns something up. What causes trouble is trying to tidy and link thousands of imported notes, not having them.

Sync is not that simple. He presents Dropbox and Obsidian Sync as equal options. General-purpose cloud folders can produce conflicted copies when the same note is edited on two devices, and mobile support varies. For a beginner, the official service or a single synced device is the safer start, plus a separate backup.

The AI section is thin. At 13:30 he correctly says Obsidian has no built-in AI and that you choose how to add it. Community plugins add chat and related-note suggestions, and file-access assistants can work on the folder directly. He gives two good rules, back up first and keep AI-generated notes apart, but says nothing about which notes an assistant should see or how it finds them in a large vault.

Search. Obsidian's search finds words, not meaning. That is fine for a few hundred notes you wrote yourself, and weaker for a large archive.

How this applies to memory across AI tools

The plain-file design he praises is also what makes a vault usable by AI tools: anything that can read Markdown can read your notes. The gap is everything you learned but did not write down, such as videos, podcasts and long articles. He shows embedding a YouTube video in a note, but an embed is a player, not searchable text.

BrainTube covers that part. It saves YouTube videos with their transcripts, articles, PDFs and podcasts into one compiled knowledge base and exposes it as an MCP server, so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients can search it alongside your own vault.

For a side-by-side view, see the comparison with Obsidian. For turning videos into notes you can search, see YouTube video to notes.

Who should watch it

Watch it if you are installing Obsidian this week or have opened it and felt lost; it is one of the faster complete tours. If you already use Obsidian, jump to 5:45 for the two settings and 7:00 for the four mistakes, then skip the hotkey list. Skip it if you want an AI workflow, since the AI part is under a minute at 13:30, or if you want a deep method for linking notes.

Frequently asked

What settings should I change first in Obsidian?: Turn on automatic updating of internal links under Files and links, so renaming a note does not break links to it. Then set a default folder for attachments so images and PDFs do not fill your sidebar. Nick Milo recommends both in this video.
Should I import my old notes into Obsidian?: Nick Milo advises against dumping old notes into a new vault. A middle path works for many people: import them into one archive folder, leave them unlinked and search them when needed. What usually fails is trying to reorganize thousands of imported notes at once.
Does Obsidian have built-in AI?: The core Obsidian app has no built-in AI. You can add it with community plugins or by giving an AI assistant access to the vault folder, since notes are plain Markdown files. Back up the vault before trying any tool that can edit files.

Keep videos like this one searchable

BrainTube saves YouTube videos with their transcripts into one compiled knowledge base that Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients can search.

Start free

Give Me 15 Minutes. I'll Teach You 80% of Obsidian

In short

The argument

Key ideas, with timestamps

A vault is a folder of Markdown

A small team and a large user base

Linking as you write

Two settings to change first

Four beginner mistakes

The hotkeys and Markdown that matter

ACE, maps of content and daily notes

Attachments, properties, Bases and Canvas