blog · 2026-11-14 · Mohak Bajaj

How to save highlights from any Mac app into Obsidian

Obsidian is a good place to keep notes. Getting text into it is the slow part. You read something in Safari, a PDF, Slack or a terminal, and you want one line of it in your vault. Copy, switch to Obsidian, find the right note, paste, switch back. By then the thought is gone.

This post shows how I save a highlight from any Mac app into Obsidian with one gesture. It uses Jot, the app I make. I also cover the other ways to do it, and when they are a better fit.

Why this works: Obsidian is a folder

An Obsidian vault is a folder of Markdown files. Obsidian shows any Markdown file that appears in that folder, no matter which app wrote it. Jot also writes plain Markdown files to a folder. So if Jot's folder is inside your vault, every capture is an Obsidian note. No plugin and no sync step is needed.

Step 1: make a folder for captures in your vault

In Finder or in Obsidian, make a new folder inside your vault. I call it Jot. Use a subfolder, not the vault root. Jot writes two helper files, INDEX.md and SKILL.md, and an attachments folder next to your notes. In a subfolder, they stay out of your way.

My Vault/
  Projects/
  Daily/
  Jot/                      the folder you pick in Jot
    2026-11-14-6tjhzv.md    one capture
    INDEX.md                written by Jot
    SKILL.md                written by Jot
    attachments/6tjhzv/     images from the selection

Step 2: point Jot at that folder

Open Jot's Settings and go to Vault & Agents. Under Folder, the Vault row shows the current path, which is ~/Documents/Jot on a new install. Click Change… and pick the folder from step 1. First-run setup has the same Change button, so you can do this on day one.

Jot does not move notes you already saved. They stay in the old folder. So it is easiest to change the folder before you start capturing.

Step 3: select text and tap Shift twice

Now select text in any app and tap Shift twice. Jot saves it as a new Markdown file in the folder. Obsidian picks it up, and the note shows in the file list. Images in the selection come too. If there is no selection but there is a screenshot on the clipboard, Jot saves that.

This works in any app where you can select text: a browser, Preview, Mail, Slack, Xcode, the Terminal. You do not leave the app you are in.

What a capture looks like in Obsidian

Each capture is one file, with YAML front matter and the text as the body:

---
archived: false
created: 2026-11-14T09:12:04.511Z
done: false
id: 6tjhzv
images: []
pin: false
section: ''
source: Safari
url: https://example.com/article
tags: []
updated: 2026-11-14T09:12:04.511Z
---
A line I selected and wanted to keep.

Obsidian shows the front matter as properties. source is the app you captured from. Browser captures also get the page url, so you can get back to where a quote came from. The first line of the body is the note's title in Jot.

The filename is YYYY-MM-DD-<id>.md. Jot never renames or moves a file after it writes it. You can edit the body in Obsidian, and Jot's inbox shows the change, because Jot watches the folder. Links, tags and backlinks you add in Obsidian are just text in the file, so they stay.

Two more ways to get text in

Dictate into Obsidian. Hold fn and speak, and Jot types the words into the app in front. That includes Obsidian. Speech runs on your Mac by default: Apple Speech on macOS 26 and later, or a local Parakeet model on older versions.

Add from the terminal. Jot has a CLI. It reads the vault path from Jot's settings, and --vault or JOT_VAULT overrides it.

jot add "Call the bank about the card"
jot --vault "$HOME/My Vault/Jot" list

Other ways to save highlights into Obsidian

Jot is one option. Here are the others I know of, and where each one fits.

• Copy and paste. It works everywhere and costs nothing. You lose the source app and URL unless you paste them too, and you have to switch apps each time. For a few quotes a week, it is fine.
• Obsidian Web Clipper. Obsidian has an official Web Clipper for the browser. If you save mostly from web pages, start there. It does not help in apps outside the browser, like a PDF reader, Slack or Mail. Obsidian itself has no global capture shortcut.
• Apple's Quick Note. In Safari, Add to Quick Note keeps a highlight and a link back to the page. But the note goes into Apple Notes, not Markdown, so it does not reach your vault.

Jot fits when you save from many apps, not only the browser, and you want each capture as its own file without switching windows. There is a longer comparison at Jot vs Obsidian. The short version is that they work together: Obsidian is where notes get linked, and Jot is how they get in.

Bonus: let an AI agent read the same notes

Because the captures are files, coding agents can read them. Jot ships an MCP server, jot mcp, that lets Claude Code, Codex or Cursor list, search, read, add and tag your captures. It reads the same folder you set in step 2. There is no delete tool, so an agent cannot remove a note. I wrote up the setup in Let Claude Code read your notes with MCP.

What it costs

Obsidian is free. Jot runs on macOS 12 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel. It has a 3-day free trial, then $29 once for 1 Mac. The first 50 one-Mac licenses are $9. There is a 7-day refund if it does not fit how you work.