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Obsidian Bases β€” When Your Notes Become a Database

In early 2026, Obsidian closed the gap between plain-text notes and structured databases with Bases β€” a new official core plugin.

What Is Bases?

Bases is an official core plugin β€” built by the Obsidian team, no installation required.

In one sentence: a view layer that displays your notes as tables, cards, or lists, based on their Properties. Your Markdown files stay exactly where they are.

Three Views: Table, Card, List

Table View

Each row is a note, each column is a property. Clicking a cell opens the underlying Markdown file.

Card View

Each note appears as a visual card β€” good for portfolio management and content libraries.

List View

A filtered, sorted list of notes. Fast to scan, easy to act on.

Filtering and Sorting

  • status = "reading" β€” only show in-progress items
  • rating >= 4 β€” only show highly-rated items
  • date-finished > 2026-01-01 β€” books finished this year only

Configurations are saved in .base files.

How It Compares to Notion Databases

FeatureNotion DatabaseObsidian Bases
Data storageNotion servers (cloud)Your machine (local)
File formatNotion proprietaryStandard Markdown (.md)
Offline useLimitedFull support
CostPaidFree (core plugin)
SpeedNetwork dependentInstant

Recent Updates (2026)

  • Drag-and-drop file import
  • Right-click context menu in table view
  • Copy/paste support with Ctrl-C / Ctrl-V

Claude Code MCP Integration

With the Obsidian MCP plugin, Claude Code can read, search, and create notes in your vault β€” turning Bases' structured data into an active AI workspace.

EdTech Use Cases

  • Curriculum management: Filter lessons by status = "needs-update"
  • Student project tracking: One Bases table for the whole cohort
  • Research database: author, year, topic, relevance β€” all in Obsidian

Sources

Discuss on Twitter β€’ View on GitHub
Obsidian Bases β€” When Your Notes Become a Database | MINSSAM.COM