Installation

DecksMD is available from the Obsidian Community Plugins store and works on both desktop and mobile.

Install from Community Plugins

1. Open Settings → Community plugins in Obsidian.
2. Make sure Restricted mode is turned off.
3. Click Browse, search for Decks — it is listed as Decks by Xherdi Lika — and click Install.
4. Click Enable.

That’s it — a brain icon appears in the left ribbon. Click it to open the DecksMD panel.

Note

The plugin is listed as “Decks” in the Community Plugins browser, by Xherdi Lika. Searching for “DecksMD” will not find it. You can also open its listing directly at community.obsidian.md/plugins/decks.

Installing on mobile

The steps are identical on iOS and Android — DecksMD is not desktop-only. Open Settings → Community plugins → Browse in the Obsidian mobile app, search for Decks, install and enable.

If your vault is synced, install the plugin on each device rather than expecting it to travel: most sync providers exclude the .obsidian plugin folder by default. Your decks and review history do travel — see Multi-device sync.

Requirements

• Obsidian 1.8.10 or newer.
• Works on desktop (macOS, Windows, Linux) and mobile (iOS, Android) — the plugin is not desktop-only.

First launch

On first install (or first upgrade) DecksMD creates a Canvas decks/ folder containing a Decks — Canvas getting started.canvas file so you can see the formats in action. You can delete it any time.

Note

DecksMD stores its data in two places inside your vault: a SQLite database in the plugin folder and small per-device sync logs in your vault root. See Multi-device sync for the details and how they travel between devices.

If the plugin doesn’t appear

• “Restricted mode” is on. Community plugins are disabled entirely until you turn it off in Settings → Community plugins.
• You searched for the wrong name. It is listed as Decks, not DecksMD.
• Your Obsidian is too old. DecksMD needs 1.8.10 or newer; older versions will not show it as installable.
• It installed but shows nothing. Check the ribbon for the brain icon, and confirm you clicked Enable after Install — they are two separate steps.

Installing a pre-release

Released versions are published on GitHub as well. To run one before it reaches the store, either use the community BRAT plugin with the repository dscherdi/decks, or download main.js, styles.css and manifest.json from a release and place them in <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/decks/, then reload Obsidian.

Every release and what changed in it is listed in the changelog.

Next step

Follow the 60-second quick start to create your first deck.