Obsidian Daily Notes: Free Templates & Setup

How Daily Notes Work in Obsidian

Obsidian's core Daily notes plugin creates one note per day from a template you define, and that template decides whether the habit sticks. This category collects our daily note downloads, starting with the Daily Note Starter, a daily note template for Obsidian with Agenda, Tasks, Log and Gratitude sections, navigation between days, and a fully worked example week, so you can read seven real days before you commit to the structure.

The zip includes two variants of the same template. The core version runs on Obsidian's built-in plugins only, which makes it the right pick if you keep restricted mode on or simply want zero setup. The Templater version fills in dates automatically and adds the previous/next links between days. If you are not sure which engine you need, the Templates vs Templater guide explains the difference and walks through installing either one.

Daily notes pay off when they feed something larger. Once a few weeks of entries pile up, a weekly review keeps them from becoming a write-only archive, and the templates in the weekly and periodic notes category are built to sit on top of this exact daily structure.

Obsidian Daily Notes Plugin Settings

Daily notes is a core plugin, so it ships with Obsidian and only needs switching on under Settings, Core plugins. Once enabled, the calendar icon in the ribbon or the "Open today's daily note" command creates a note named after today's date, or opens it if it already exists. Its settings page has four fields that matter: the date format, the folder for new notes, the template file, and whether today's note opens on startup. Point the template field at the file from our daily note template and every new day starts with the same structure.

Daily Note Date Format and Folder Structure

Keep the file name in YYYY-MM-DD. It sorts correctly in the file explorer, links cleanly from other notes and is what most plugins expect. The date format field also accepts slashes, which Obsidian turns into folders, so a vault with years of notes stays tidy without any manual filing:

YYYY/MM-MMMM/YYYY-MM-DD

That format files today's note as 2026/10-October/2026-10-23. Put the readable version of the date, such as "Friday, 23 October 2026", in the note's heading through the template rather than in the file name.

Obsidian Daily Notes with a Calendar View

The community Calendar plugin adds a month view in the sidebar: click a day to open or create its note, and dots show which days already have one. In its settings you can choose the day your week starts on and switch on week numbers, which pairs well with weekly notes. If you want something lighter than a full daily page for reflection, the journal template covers that side.