Web Viewer Integration
What the web viewer is, which sites it supports, and why it exists alongside the local player
The web viewer lets you visit YouTube, Bilibili, Coursera, and other video sites directly inside Obsidian. You watch and take notes in the same window, capturing timestamps as you go.
Browser-in-Obsidian
The web viewer works like a browser tab inside Obsidian. Navigate to a video site, log in if needed, and browse as you normally would. Media Extended layers playback controls, timestamp capture, screenshot tools, and caption fetching on top of the page.
Supported sites
Five video platforms work in the web viewer. All of them get the core playback controls: play/pause, seek, volume, speed, timestamps, and screenshots. Some platforms expose additional features.
Captions
You can download subtitles from a site and view them in the transcript panel. Subtitle download is available for:
- YouTube: auto-generated, manual, and translated captions
- Bilibili: CC and AI-generated captions (require login)
- Coursera: course subtitles
YouTube quality lock
You can lock YouTube playback to a specific resolution. The setting persists across videos so you always get the quality you prefer. See How to Lock YouTube Quality for details.
Bilibili danmaku
The web viewer renders Bilibili's scrolling bullet comments (danmaku). You can turn them off in settings if you prefer a cleaner view while taking notes.
Local player vs web viewer
For YouTube and Vimeo, you can choose between two playback modes.
The local player embeds just the video in a minimal player without the surrounding site UI. This works well when you just want to watch and take notes. The downside is that YouTube's bot checks are stricter with embedded players, so some videos may not load.
The web viewer loads the full site inside Obsidian. You see comments, playlists, and recommendations, and you can interact with the page as you would in a browser. You need YouTube Premium for ad-free playback. It's heavier, but you get the complete site experience alongside your notes.
You can set a default mode in the plugin settings. Individual links open in whichever mode you choose.
Other sites (Bilibili, Coursera, Baidu Pan) always open in the web viewer. There is no local player option for them.
Logging in
Login is optional. You only need it for:
- Private or age-restricted videos
- YouTube Premium ad-free playback
- Bilibili captions that require an account
- Coursera course content behind enrollment
The web viewer has a login page with links to each supported site. You log in the same way you would in any browser, and your session carries over across restarts.
How the daemon enables this
The web viewer relies on the main daemon, which runs alongside Obsidian. The daemon injects playback controls, caption extraction, and screenshot tools into web pages loaded in the viewer. Without it, the web viewer is just a plain browser with none of the media features.
The web viewer is desktop-only. It needs the main daemon installed and a recent Obsidian installer version for secure cookie storage. See How to Set Up Web Viewer Integration for the setup steps.