Time Machine

Browse, compare, and restore previous versions of your notes using Obsidian’s built-in file-recovery snapshots and git commits.

Key features

Timeline slider to scrub through snapshots of your notes
Colored diff view showing exactly what changed between a snapshot and your current file
Selective restore – restore an entire version or just individual changes (hunks)
Git integration – git commits appear alongside File Recovery snapshots on the same timeline (desktop only)
Source indicators – each snapshot shows its origin (File Recovery or git commit with hash and message)
Smart deduplication – identical snapshots across sources are merged, keeping only the most recent
On-demand snapshots – force-create a File Recovery snapshot at any time via command
Auto-updates when you switch files – no manual refresh needed
Works on desktop and mobile (git features are desktop-only)

Quick start

Make sure the File Recovery core plugin is enabled in Settings -> Core plugins
Install and enable Time Machine
Open the command palette and run Time Machine: Open view
The sidebar panel shows snapshots for the active file – use the slider to browse them

If your vault is a git repository, git commits will automatically appear on the timeline alongside File Recovery snapshots.

Snapshot sources

Time Machine reads from two sources:

File Recovery – Obsidian’s built-in core plugin that automatically saves snapshots at a configurable interval (default: every 2 minutes). Works on all platforms.
Git – If your vault is inside a git repository and you’re on desktop, Time Machine fetches the commit history for each file. This is read-only; Time Machine never creates commits or modifies the repository.

If File Recovery is disabled, Time Machine will show a notice but still work if git is available. If neither source has data for a file, an empty state message is shown.

About

Created by Sebastien Dubois.

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