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Mind Mapping

Osmosis renders your markdown structure as a fully interactive mind map. Headings, bullet lists, and numbered lists become nodes. The map and your markdown stay in sync — edit one, and the other updates instantly.

Full-screen mind map view

How Markdown Maps to Nodes

Markdown Node Type
# Heading through ###### Heading Branch nodes (depth = heading level)
- Item or * Item Bullet list nodes
1. Item Numbered list nodes
Plain paragraphs Paragraph nodes
> Callout or > quote A single blockquote node
![[other-note]] Transcluded sub-branch

Nodes render rich content — bold, italic, code, images, and LaTeX all display inside map nodes.

Multi-line blocks are one node

Code blocks, tables, and callouts/blockquotes each map to a single node rather than one node per line. For callouts, a run of consecutive >-prefixed lines — title, body, and any nested list — is one node; a blank or non-> line ends the run, so stacked callouts stay separate nodes.

Opening a Mind Map

Method How
Editor header Click the icon next to the reading view toggle
Command palette "Open mind map view"
File menu Right-click a file > "Mind map view"
Ribbon Click the icon in the left sidebar

Launch mind map from note view

Reading Mode

Mind maps have a reading mode, mirroring the Markdown view's reading/editing toggle. In reading mode the map is safe to explore but cannot be changed — useful for reference maps, shared vaults, and phones, where a stray tap-drag used to rearrange your notes.

Toggle How
Header action Click the / icon in the mind map header
Keyboard Ctrl+E (Cmd+E on macOS)
Command palette "Toggle mind map reading mode"

What changes in reading mode:

Still works Blocked
Pan, zoom, fit to view Adding, deleting, and moving nodes
Collapse / expand and keyboard navigation In-place text editing (F2 / double-click)
Selection, copy, "Study this branch" Drag-and-drop repositioning and node resizing
Spatial study and peek, including rating Copy style / paste style from the map
Line card actions on the node menu Cut, paste, and delete

Dragging a node pans the viewport instead of moving the node, resize handles are hidden, and the toolbar collapses to navigation-only buttons. Node context menus keep just Copy, collapse/expand, Study this branch, and the line card actions.

Study still counts

Spatial study and peek stay fully available in reading mode. Ratings are study metadata, not map edits — they never touch your note's structure.

The mode is remembered per pane, so one map can be open for reading while another is open for editing. To choose how maps open by default, set Settings > Osmosis > Default mind map mode to Editing, Reading, or Reading on mobile only.

Tip

The properties sidebar stays live in reading mode by design — it's for styling the map, and styling isn't a structural edit to your note.

Transclusion

Embed another note's content as a sub-branch using standard Obsidian syntax:

## My Topic
- Key point
- ![[detailed-notes]]

The embedded note's heading and list structure appears as a collapsible sub-branch, loaded expanded by default. Turn off Expand transclusions in the plugin settings to lazy-load them instead — collapsed until first expanded. Editing a transcluded node writes changes to the source file.

osmosis_mind_map_transclusion_split_view

Cursor Sync

When enabled (on by default), clicking a node scrolls the markdown editor to that line, and placing your cursor in the editor highlights the corresponding node.

Toggle in Settings > Osmosis > Cursor sync.

Touch Support

Osmosis works on Obsidian mobile:

Action Gesture
Pan Single finger drag on canvas
Zoom Pinch
Select Tap a node
Edit Double-tap a node
Context menu Long-press a node or canvas

Guides

  • Editing

    Add, delete, move, and restructure nodes with keyboard shortcuts and context menus

  • Navigation

    Keyboard navigation, selection, viewport controls, and collapse/expand

  • Styling

    Themes, node shapes, branch lines, per-map settings, and the style cascade