Settings

Highlight folder

• Default value: ibooks-highlights

A folder (within the root of your vault) where you want to save imported highlights. You can use digits, dashes, underscores, or spaces in the folder name. To specify a subfolder of any depth, use / as a separator. If the specified path does not exist (fully or partially), it will be created.

For example, below are some valid folder names:

• notes/highlights
• imported_notes/apple_books/highlights
• 3 - Resources/My Books/Apple Books/Unprocessed

Import highlights on start

• Default value: Turned off

Import all highlights from all your books when Obsidian starts. Respects the Backup highlights setting.

Backup highlights

• Default value: Turned off
• Backup template:
  • for the highlight folder: <highlights-folder>-bk-<timestamp>. For example, ibooks-highlights-bk-1704060001.
  • for a specific book: <highlights-file>-bk-<timestamp>. For example, Building a Second Brain-bk-1704060001.

Backup highlights before import.

• When importing all highlights, the highlight folder contents (see the note below) will be backed up.
• When importing highlights from a specific book, the specific highlights file will be backed up, if it exists.

The backup name is pre-configured based on the template above and cannot be changed.

Examples

Import all highlights

Initial state

.
└── ibooks-highlights
    ├── Atomic Habits - Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results
    └── Building a Second Brain

After import

.
├── ibooks-highlights
│   └── <newly imported highlights>
└── ibooks-highlights-bk-1723233525489
    ├── Atomic Habits - Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results
    └── Building a Second Brain

Import highlights from a specific book

Initial state

.
└── ibooks-highlights
    ├── Atomic Habits - Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results
    └── Building a Second Brain

After import

.
└── ibooks-highlights
    ├── Atomic Habits - Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results
	├── Atomic Habits - Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results-bk-1723234215251
    └── Building a Second Brain

NOTE

The plugin will back up only the files that are direct children of the highlight folder. If you (for some reason) have a nested folder structure inside the highlight folder, these folders will not be backed up and will be overwritten on import.

TIP

To prevent accidental data loss when the setting is turned off, the plugin will display a confirmation dialog before overwriting the existing highlights.

Highlights sorting criterion

• Default value: By creation date (from oldest to newest)

Sort highlight by a specific criterion.

The available options are:

• By creation date (from oldest to newest)
• By creation date (from newest to oldest)
• By last modification date* (from oldest to newest)
• By last modification date* (from newest to oldest)
• By location in a book

What a modification is?

Modification includes the following cases:

• Updating highlight text
• Adding or updating a note
• Changing the highlight color or style

Examples

Let's consider an example book with the following highlights (callouts to the left indicate the order in which the highlights were created):

• By creation date (from oldest to newest): The highlights that were created first will be at the top.

  Example

  ## Annotations
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: And now this. Christmas Day, alone on a hospital ward, failing to get through my shift.
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: At 10:30am, I looked around the ward. Nurse Janice was sprinting up and down corridor A
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: As Christmas turned to Boxing Day, I stayed up poring over my old notes and wondered whether that was where I was going wrong
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: ‘Merry Christmas, Ali. Try not to kill anyone.’

• By creation date (from newest to oldest): The highlights that were created last will be at the top.

  Example

  ## Annotations
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: ‘Merry Christmas, Ali. Try not to kill anyone.’
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: As Christmas turned to Boxing Day, I stayed up poring over my old notes and wondered whether that was where I was going wrong
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: At 10:30am, I looked around the ward. Nurse Janice was sprinting up and down corridor A
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: And now this. Christmas Day, alone on a hospital ward, failing to get through my shift.

• By last modification date (from oldest to newest): The highlights that were modified first will be at the top.

  Example

  ## Annotations
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: As Christmas turned to Boxing Day, I stayed up poring over my old notes and wondered whether that was where I was going wrong
  - 📝 Note:: N/A
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: ‘Merry Christmas, Ali. Try not to kill anyone.’
  - 📝 Note:: N/A
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: At 10:30am, I looked around the ward. Nurse Janice was sprinting up and down corridor A
  - 📝 Note:: Test modification date (modified first)
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: And now this. Christmas Day, alone on a hospital ward, failing to get through my shift.
  - 📝 Note:: Test modification date (modified second)

• By last modification date (from newest to oldest): The highlights that were modified last will be at the top.

  Example

  ## Annotations
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: And now this. Christmas Day, alone on a hospital ward, failing to get through my shift.
  - 📝 Note:: Test modification date (modified second)
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: At 10:30am, I looked around the ward. Nurse Janice was sprinting up and down corridor A
  - 📝 Note:: Test modification date (modified first)
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: ‘Merry Christmas, Ali. Try not to kill anyone.’
  - 📝 Note:: N/A
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: As Christmas turned to Boxing Day, I stayed up poring over my old notes and wondered whether that was where I was going wrong
  - 📝 Note:: N/A

• By location in a book: Highlights are sorted by their location in a book.

  Example

  ## Annotations
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: ‘Merry Christmas, Ali. Try not to kill anyone.’
  - 📝 Note:: N/A
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: At 10:30am, I looked around the ward. Nurse Janice was sprinting up and down corridor A
  - 📝 Note:: Test modification date (modified first)
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: And now this. Christmas Day, alone on a hospital ward, failing to get through my shift.
  - 📝 Note:: Test modification date (modified second)
  ----
  - 🎯 Highlight:: As Christmas turned to Boxing Day, I stayed up poring over my old notes and wondered whether that was where I was going wrong
  - 📝 Note:: N/A

Template

• Template for highlight files.

Check the Templates and variables page for more information.

Template: Keep Me section

Default delimiters:

• Opening: %% keep-me %%
• Closing: %% /keep-me %%

You can use the Keep Me section to protect specific content (like summaries, thoughts and reflections, references, etc.) in your highlight files from being overwritten during the import process.

Example

Title:: 📕 Building a Second Brain

%% keep-me %%
## My thoughts
- This book helped me organize my knowledge and be more productive.
- The PARA method was a game changer for my workflow.
- I need to re-read the section about progressive summarization, I think I can implement it in my note-taking process.
%% /keep-me %%

## Annotations

- 🎯 Highlight:: Information is the fundamental building block of everything you do.
- 📝 Note:: This immediately reminds me of the need to document everything I do 😁

When you specify the Keep Me section in the template, it serves as a placeholder with the default content for new highlight files. When you update a highlight file, the current content of the Keep Me section is saved to the settings. During import, the plugin checks if there’s stored content for the highlight file and restores it to the Keep Me section if found. Otherwise, it keeps the placeholder.

TIP

You can customize the opening and closing delimiters if they conflict with your notes or if you prefer different markers.

INFO

The plugin tracks the Keep Me section in the highlight files within the highlight folder only. Backups of highlight files (with -bk-<timestamp> in their names) are out of scope. Please keep this in mind when updating the Keep Me section content to avoid accidental data loss during backup and import.

Template for naming highlight files

• Default value: {{{bookTitle}}}

Template to generate the name of highlight files. Check the Template variables for filenames section for more information.

Reset template

• Reset template to default

A quick way to reset the template to the default one. May be useful if you've made a mistake or any unwanted changes to the template and want to start over.