Unread Dot

A small Obsidian plugin that marks newly created files with a blue dot and externally modified files with an orange dot in the file explorer. Both dots clear the moment you open the file. Helps you spot notes you have not yet read or that changed under you without having to maintain any frontmatter or tags.

Features

• New files (any extension) get a blue dot in the file explorer the moment they are created.
• Files modified while not open in any Obsidian leaf get an orange dot. Your own typing in an open file does not trigger the dot.
• Either dot disappears the first time you click the file in the explorer or open it in a tab.
• State persists across restarts in .obsidian/plugins/unread-dot/data.json.
• Renaming or moving a file preserves its marked state.
• File-explorer only. Wikilinks, graph view, and the editor are untouched.
• Optional ignore lists by extension or path prefix (e.g., skip attachments).
• Right-click any file for "Mark as read" / "Mark as unread".
• Right-click any folder for "Mark all in folder as read" (recursive).
• Commands: "Mark all notes as read", "Mark current note as unread".

Colors

Defaults are blue (#3b82f6) for unread and orange (#f59e0b) for modified. Override either by setting CSS variables in your theme or snippets:

.theme-dark, .theme-light {
  --unread-dot-color: #3b82f6;
  --unread-dot-modified-color: #f59e0b;
}

First-run behavior

Existing files in the vault when you install the plugin are treated as already read. Only files created from that point forward get tracked. This avoids flooding the explorer with dots on day one.

Installation

From Community Plugins

1. Settings → Community plugins → Browse
2. Search for "Unread Dot"
3. Install and enable

Manual install

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Create a folder .obsidian/plugins/unread-dot/ inside your vault.
3. Drop the three files into that folder.
4. Restart Obsidian and enable the plugin in Settings → Community plugins.

Via BRAT (pre-release testing)

1. Install the BRAT plugin.
2. Add the beta plugin: denmojo/obsidian-unread-dot.
3. Enable it in Settings → Community plugins.

Settings

• Ignored extensions - comma-separated list of extensions (no leading dot) to skip. Example: png, jpg, pdf, opus.
• Ignored path prefixes - one path per line. Files whose path starts with any of these will not be marked. Example: Attachments/ or Archive/.
• Mark all read button - clears every unread mark in the vault.

Changes to ignore rules apply immediately and prune any currently marked files that match.

Commands

Command	Description
Unread Dot: Mark all notes as read	Clears every unread mark.
Unread Dot: Mark current note as unread	Adds the active note back to the unread set.

Right-click menu

Right-click any file in the explorer to toggle its unread state. Files matching an ignore rule do not show the menu item.

Right-click any folder for Mark all in folder as read. This clears unread and modified marks for every descendant file at any depth and reports the count in a Notice. Useful after blanket subtree reorganizations that mark many files as modified at once.

Known limitations

• Tracked state lives in the vault's .obsidian/ folder, so it syncs across devices only if you sync .obsidian/ (e.g., Obsidian Sync, Syncthing).
• The plugin uses Obsidian's internal view.fileItems to attach the marker. This is widely used by community plugins but is not part of the public API and may need adjustment if Obsidian changes the file-explorer internals.

License

MIT - see LICENSE.