Notion to Obsidian: fixing the ugly UUID filenames and broken links

Why the Notion export is nearly unusable as-is

If you've ever tried to leave Notion for Obsidian, you know the pain. Notion's "Export as Markdown & CSV" gives you a ZIP where every file looks like:

My Great Note 8f3e12b4c9a24d78b1e6f9a3c2d1e0f8.md

That 32-character hex string on the end is a UUID. Every filename has one. Every internal link in the Markdown also has one. Attachments live in folders that also carry UUIDs. Import that ZIP straight into Obsidian and you get an ugly, unbrowsable mess where clicking a link 404s because the paths use URL-encoded spaces (%20) that don't match the folder names.

Cleaning this manually — for a 500-note workspace — is a full weekend of find-and-replace.

What the fix actually needs to do

To make Notion's export feel native in Obsidian, four things have to happen:

1. Strip UUIDs from every filename. My Great Note 8f3e...f8.md → My Great Note.md.
2. Rewrite internal Markdown links to [[wikilinks]]. [My Great Note](My%20Great%20Note%208f3e...f8.md) → [[My Great Note]]. That's the format Obsidian uses for its graph view and backlinks.
3. Move attachments to one folder. Notion scatters images across per-page subfolders. Obsidian expects a single /attachments (or configurable) directory.
4. Preserve databases. CSV exports of database views should carry through unchanged.

Notion to Obsidian does all four in one pass, entirely in your browser.

The workflow

1. In Notion, click ••• → Export.
2. Format: Markdown & CSV. Include content: Everything. Include subpages: On. Create folders for subpages: On.
3. Wait for the email (larger workspaces can take minutes).
4. Download the ZIP.
5. Drop it into Notion to Obsidian.
6. Download the cleaned vault ZIP.
7. Unzip it as an Obsidian vault. Open in Obsidian. Watch the graph light up.

What to check after import

Backlinks. Open Obsidian's graph view. If your notes have real inter-linking, you should see clusters — not a scattered dust of unconnected nodes. If it is scattered, some Notion links were external URLs (not internal page references) and can't be wikified.

Attachments. Every image should render inline. If some are broken, the original Notion export likely had missing files — check the attachments/ folder against what's referenced in your notes.

Databases. Notion databases export as one .md file per row and a summary .csv. In Obsidian, the row-per-file version is more useful. Delete the CSV if you don't need it, or import it into Dataview.

What doesn't survive

Be honest about what Notion → Obsidian loses:

• Toggle blocks collapse into normal headings.
• Synced blocks become duplicated content.
• Database views (kanban, calendar, gallery) don't exist — you'll have to rebuild them with Dataview or Bases.
• Comments are stripped.

For most workspaces this is fine. If you rely heavily on database views, plan a week to rebuild them the Obsidian way.

Why in-browser matters

Your Notion workspace probably contains personal journals, business plans, client notes, half-written thoughts. Uploading that to a random online converter is a bad idea. In-browser conversion means the ZIP is parsed in your tab, the output is generated in your tab, and nothing crosses the network.

Related tools

• Notion to Obsidian — the converter.
• ChatGPT to Markdown — same idea for your ChatGPT history.
• Kindle to Markdown — pull your book highlights into the same vault.