Open a Folder as a Project

Any folder on your computer can become a Filamental project. Point Filamental at it and every file inside becomes a node you can arrange, connect and write about, while the files themselves stay exactly where they are.

Why you'd use it

Most of us already have the material: a folder of notes, a research pile, a client's documents, a stack of PDFs. Opening it as a project lets you see it as a structure and start connecting it, without copying anything or deciding up front how it should be organised.

If you'd rather an AI read the documents and build the structure for you, see Explore a Folder or Document with AI.

Opening a folder

1. Click New / Open / Import…, in the Projects window (click your project's name, top left) or on the start screen.
2. Choose Folder, under Use What You Have, and pick the folder.
3. Filamental looks inside. A folder that's already a project just opens, and an Obsidian vault is offered the import instead (see Working with Obsidian). Anything else gets a short step saying the folder isn't a Filamental project yet.
4. Decide about sub-folders, if it has any (see below).
5. Click Open as a project.

Every file becomes a node. Notes that link to each other with wikilinks are connected, and PDFs, images and other files arrive as file nodes that open in their usual app when you double-click them.

Sub-folders as classifications

If the folder has sub-folders, you'll see Use sub-folders as classifications. Switch it on and the files in each top-level sub-folder go into a classification named after it, PDFs and images included. Files sitting in the top folder stay unclassified.

Leave it off and everything arrives unclassified, ready for you to sort in the Left Panel.

What happens to your files

Nothing is moved, renamed or deleted. Your notes get Filamental's details added to their front matter, and any fields they already have are kept, so Obsidian and other apps carry on reading them as before. Filamental also adds a hidden .filamental folder inside, which holds the layout and the project's settings (more in Forget, Remove or Delete a Project).

Classifying notes later

If you opened a folder without the sub-folder switch, or you've added notes since, you can still classify them by folder. Click + in the bottom bar and choose Classify notes by folder.

• Filamental takes a backup first.
• Every note that has no classification gets the classification of the top-level folder it sits in.
• Notes that already have a classification are never touched, and neither are notes in the top folder.
• Filamental reopens the project so the change shows, and lists any notes it couldn't change.

This one is for notes only, and it isn't a step Ctrl+Z can undo (see Undo and Redo).

A folder inside another project

If the folder you choose sits inside a project you already have, Filamental says so first. Opening it makes it a separate project, and the outer project then shows it as a single bridge node that takes you into it.

Tips

• New files you drop into the folder later appear as nodes by themselves.
• A few hundred unconnected nodes is a lot to look at. Highlight one classification at a time (see Highlighting and Focused Layout) and connect as you go.

What it doesn't do

• It doesn't read the documents for you. Each file becomes a node, but working out what's in them and how they relate is your job, or an AI's (see Explore a Folder or Document with AI).
• Deeper sub-folders don't get classifications of their own. Their files take the classification of the top-level sub-folder they're inside.
• Notes that already have front matter from another app (tags or aliases, say) aren't taken in by a plain open. Switch on Use sub-folders as classifications, or for an Obsidian vault use Import from Obsidian, and they arrive with their own fields kept.