Toolbar

The Toolbar is a row of editing buttons right below the editor. Pick which actions it shows, and in what order.

Using the Toolbar

• The Toolbar appears only while the keyboard is open.
• If it has more buttons than fit on screen, scroll it sideways.
• Undo and Redo are dimmed when there’s nothing to undo or redo.
• AI rewrite and Insert location take a moment. While they work, the button shows a spinner, then a check mark or a cross.

Most actions work on the line or selection where your cursor is. Without a selection, inline styles (bold, italic and so on) apply to the word under the cursor.

Customize the Toolbar

1. Go to Settings → Interface → Toolbar.
2. Under Active Actions, drag the handle to reorder, or uncheck an action to remove it.
3. Under Actions, check an action to add it to the end of the Toolbar.
4. For Insert date and Insert time, tap the format shown on the row to choose a different date or time format. See Date formats.

To start over, tap Restore defaults and confirm.

Default Toolbar

A new install starts with these 10 actions, in this order:

1. Undo
2. Toggle heading
3. Expand Selection
4. Toggle bold
5. Cycle bullet/checkbox
6. Toggle numbered list
7. Insert horizontal rule
8. Go to last line
9. AI rewrite
10. Paste

All actions

Action	What it does
Undo	Undoes the last change. One history covers everything in the draft: typing, formatting, attachments, Property edits and even Clear.
Redo	Redoes what you just undid.
Paste	Pastes the clipboard. Leading spaces and blank lines are trimmed. With the cursor at the very end of your text, the paste goes on a new line.
Expand Selection	Selects more with each tap: the word, then the line, then the paragraph, then the whole text block.
Go to first line	Moves the cursor to the start of the draft.
Go to last line	Moves the cursor to the end of the draft.
Move caret up	Moves the cursor one line up, into the text above an attachment if needed.
Move caret down	Moves the cursor one line down, into the text below an attachment if needed.
Move caret left	Moves the cursor one character left. With a selection, collapses it to its start.
Move caret right	Moves the cursor one character right. With a selection, collapses it to its end.
Move line up	Swaps the current line (or the selected lines) with the line above.
Move line down	Swaps the current line (or the selected lines) with the line below.
Delete line	Deletes the current line, or all selected lines.
Delete paragraph	Deletes the current paragraph, that is the text between two blank lines.
Toggle bold	Wraps in **bold**, or removes it.
Toggle italic	Wraps in *italic*, or removes it.
Toggle strikethrough	Wraps in ~~strikethrough~~, or removes it.
Toggle highlight	Wraps in ==highlight==, or removes it.
Toggle code	Wraps in `code`, or removes it.
Toggle inline math	Wraps in $math$, or removes it.
Toggle comment	Wraps in %%comment%% (hidden in Obsidian’s reading view), or removes it.
Insert code block	Wraps the selection, or the word under the cursor, in a fenced code block (```). On an empty spot, inserts an empty block.
Insert math block	Wraps the selection, or the word under the cursor, in a $$ math block. On an empty spot, inserts an empty block.
Toggle heading	Cycles the heading level: plain → # → ## … → ###### → plain.
Set as heading 1	Makes the line a level 1 heading (# ), replacing any other level.
Set as heading 2	Makes the line a level 2 heading (## ), replacing any other level.
Set as heading 3	Makes the line a level 3 heading (### ), replacing any other level.
Set as heading 4	Makes the line a level 4 heading (#### ), replacing any other level.
Set as heading 5	Makes the line a level 5 heading (##### ), replacing any other level.
Set as heading 6	Makes the line a level 6 heading (###### ), replacing any other level.
Remove heading	Turns a heading back into a plain line.
Toggle blockquote	Adds or removes > at the start of the line.
Toggle bullet list	Adds or removes - . Turns a numbered item, task or quote into a bullet.
Toggle numbered list	Numbers the selected lines 1., 2. …, or removes the numbers.
Toggle checkbox status	Checks or unchecks a task. On a plain line, adds an unchecked task - [ ] . Works with numbered tasks too.
Cycle bullet/checkbox	Each tap moves the line one step: plain → bullet - → task - [ ] → done - [x] → bullet. Numbered items cycle 1. → 1. [ ] → 1. [x] → 1..
Indent list item	Indents the line by 4 spaces. Numbered lists are renumbered.
Unindent list item	Removes one level of indentation (up to 4 spaces or a tab). Numbered lists are renumbered.
Insert horizontal rule	Inserts a *** divider line.
Clean formatting	Strips Markdown from the selection, or from the whole text block if nothing is selected: headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, highlight, comments, inline code and math, quotes, list and task markers, dividers. Links and images keep only their text. Code blocks and math blocks are removed with their content.
AI rewrite	Sends the selection, or the whole text block if nothing is selected, to AI and replaces it with the rewritten text. Needs a plan. Customize it with the AI rewrite prompt. See AI prompts.
Insert date	Inserts today’s date at the cursor, the same way Paste does. Default format YYYY-MM-DD.
Insert time	Inserts the current time at the cursor, the same way Paste does. Default format HH:mm.
Insert location	Inserts your current place, in your Location format, without opening the location popup. If you tap Save before the location arrives, the save waits for it. See Location.

Warning

Clean formatting without a selection works on the whole text block. Select the part you want first if you only need to clean some of it. If you change your mind, tap Undo.

Note

If you upgraded from a version before the Moment.js date syntax, Insert date may still use the old default yyyy-MM-dd until you complete the date format migration. See Date format migration.

Related

• Editor
• Date formats
• AI prompts
• Location
• Settings reference