Clean up what you paste in Obsidian

Copy images from Safari to Obsidian, strip tracking parameters from URLs, fetch page titles, and clean up AI-generated text. Just paste, and the plugin handles the rest. Broken terminal output? One command away.

Better Paste, a paste cleanup plugin for Obsidian
Install in Obsidian View documentation
Free Open source
21 Languages
33 Site rules
Better Paste, a paste cleanup plugin for Obsidian
Examples

Copy. Paste. Fixed.

Six examples. Some run on every paste, others are commands you run when you need them.

Images from Safari

Copy an image in Safari, paste it into Obsidian, and you get a web link instead of the image. Annoying! Better Paste saves the actual image into your vault.

Copied 
![](https://images.example.com/2026/05/skyline-8f21a.jpg?auto=format&w=2400)
Pasted 
![[skyline-8f21a.jpg]]

Tracking parameters

Links you copy from newsletters and social apps drag a lot of tracking junk along. Better Paste cleans it off, and site rules keep the parameters that matter, like a YouTube video ID or a search term.

Copied 
https://www.theverge.com/2026/1/9/story?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwAR2x9
Pasted 
https://www.theverge.com/2026/1/9/story

Link titles

Paste a bare URL and it turns into a Markdown link with the real page title. The URL is pasted right away and updates when the title arrives, so nothing blocks.

Copied 
https://obsidian.md
Pasted 
[Obsidian - Sharpen your thinking](https://obsidian.md)

Terminal output

Terminals break long lines at the window edge. Escape codes are stripped on every paste, and one command joins the lines back together.

Copied 
npm warn deprecated inflight@1.0.6: This module is not supported and leaks memory. Do
  not use it. Check out lru-cache instead.
Pasted 
npm warn deprecated inflight@1.0.6: This module is not supported and leaks memory. Do not use it. Check out lru-cache instead.

AI text

Chatbot text comes with curly quotes, long dashes and invisible characters. The invisible ones are removed on every paste, and with Quotes and Dashes turned on the rest becomes plain text too.

Copied 
“It works,” she said — finally.
Pasted 
"It works," she said - finally.

Commas and quotes

Prefer your commas outside the quotation marks? Select the text and run Move commas outside quotes. Move commas inside quotes goes the other way.

Copied 
She called it "finished," then left.
Pasted 
She called it "finished", then left.
Features

Small rules that add up

Sensible defaults for everything, and 33 site rules you can edit.

Images into your vault

Safari copies, pictures in web content, and image links are saved locally, named after their source.

Tracking removal

Two modes: strip every parameter except what site rules keep, or only strip known trackers.

Site rules

Thirty three sites built in, with a live tester. Edit them, delete them, add your own.

Link titles

A pasted URL becomes a Markdown link with the real page title.

Terminal cleanup

Escape codes stripped on every paste. One command rejoins broken lines and turns bullets into lists.

Quotes and dashes

Curly quotes and long dashes become straight ones. Off by default, and code and links are left alone.

Invisible characters

Zero-width spaces removed, non-breaking spaces normalized, meaningful joiners kept.

Per-note control

Add bp: false to a note's frontmatter and it is left alone, or bp: true to always clean it.

Image size and CSS class

Give every pasted image a width, a class, or both, or pick in a small dialog on each paste. A note property can set the width too.

Commands and hotkeys

Paste with or without processing, clean up a selection or terminal output, move commas, toggle cleanup, all bindable.

21 languages

Commands, settings, notices and dialogs follow the language Obsidian is set to.

Code stays code

Pasting into code or frontmatter changes nothing, and fenced code inside a paste survives byte for byte.

Installation

Get started in seconds

Install from Obsidian

  1. Open Settings → Community plugins
  2. Search for "Better Paste"
  3. Click Install, then Enable
Install in Obsidian View documentation
About

Built by an industry veteran

Johan Sanneblad, PhD

Passion for coding

I have a PhD in Software Development and have worked with innovation development for companies like Apple, Electronic Arts, Google, Microsoft, LEGO and Volvo Cars. I also build Notebook Navigator, the most popular file explorer plugin for Obsidian.

I built Better Paste because pasting into Obsidian kept needing the same manual fixes: images from Safari that arrived as web links, URLs full of tracking parameters, terminal output broken at the window edge, and chatbot text full of characters nobody typed. Now I just paste.

My hope is that you forget the plugin is even installed. You copy, you paste, and everything just works.

If you have feature suggestions or found a bug, please open an issue on GitHub.

Connect on LinkedIn Follow on GitHub

Support the project

Better Paste is free and open source. If you love using it, consider supporting development.

Sponsor on GitHub Buy Me A Coffee
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Why does pasting an image from Safari give me a link instead of the image?

Safari puts both the image and an HTML tag on the clipboard, and Obsidian prefers the HTML, so you get a web link. Better Paste saves the actual image into your vault instead, named after the original file.

Does Better Paste send my clipboard anywhere?

No. Better Paste makes network requests in exactly three cases: downloading an image you pasted, fetching the title of a pasted link, and loading dialog artwork from GitHub. No telemetry, no analytics, and nothing is ever uploaded.

Will it change code I paste?

No. Pasting into code blocks, inline code or frontmatter changes nothing, and fenced code inside a paste comes through untouched.

Can I turn it off for a single note?

Yes. Add bp: false to a note's frontmatter and Better Paste leaves that note alone. It works the other way too: bp: true cleans a note even when automatic cleanup is off.

Which link parameters are removed?

You choose: strip every parameter except what site rules keep, or only strip known trackers. 33 site rules ship with the plugin, protecting things like YouTube video IDs and search terms, and you can edit all of them.

Is Better Paste free, and does it work on mobile?

Yes. Better Paste is free and open source under the GPL-3.0 license, and it works on desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux) and mobile (iOS and Android).