Smart Dedupe
Find and review duplicate or near-duplicate notes from one Smart Dedupe reference. Edition-specific requirements are labeled where they apply.
Find duplicate and near-duplicate notes in Obsidian
Smart Dedupe surfaces exact and semantically similar blocks for review. It does not automatically merge, archive, or delete notes.
The current Duplicate Detector keeps scan controls and reviewed match decisions in one readable workspace.
Availability and preparation
The Command Palette exposes separate current-note and full-vault duplicate scans.
Smart Dedupe requires the Pro feature and prepared source blocks. Exact matching can surface some repeated text without embeddings; semantic comparison depends on current vectors.
Scan the current note
The current-note scan compares blocks from the active note with blocks from other notes. Pairs from the same source note are excluded.
Scan the full vault
The full-vault scan compares blocks across different notes. It uses the indexed search path when available and a slower fallback otherwise.
Use the ribbon scan
The ribbon action provides a direct entry point to a full-vault duplicate scan.
The Smart Dedupe ribbon action starts a full-vault scan.
Configure the scan
Before scanning, choose:
- current note or full vault
- block similarity threshold
- maximum results
- whether to exclude frontmatter matches
Configure the similarity threshold
The threshold is the minimum semantic similarity for a candidate pair. Higher values return stricter candidates; lower values broaden the review set and increase false positives.
Set the maximum result count
Maximum results limits the collected set.
A full-vault scan can stop after collecting enough qualifying semantic matches. The displayed set is score-sorted, but it is not guaranteed to be the exhaustive global top-N set across the vault.
Exclude frontmatter matches
Enable this option when repeated YAML or metadata blocks are not useful review candidates.
Understand exact matching
Exact repeated text is checked before semantic comparisons. An exact match can be found even when one or both blocks do not have embeddings.
Minimum length for exact matches
Very short exact repeats are ignored to reduce boilerplate noise. The current cutoff is 40 characters and is not configurable in the scan modal.
Monitor scan progress
The progress surface reports current work, result count, and cancellation controls during a vault scan.
The progress surface shows comparison progress, results found, and a cancel action. Progress mainly reflects semantic comparison work, so the earlier exact-match pass may not be represented in the bar.
Why can the progress bar omit the exact-match pass?
The progress surface mainly tracks semantic comparison work.
Minimize and restore a running scan
Close the progress modal to minimize it to a bottom-right indicator. Select the indicator to restore the scan. Results reopen when a minimized scan finishes.
Cancel a scan
A full-vault scan can be cancelled. Smart Dedupe can still show the partial candidates collected before cancellation.
Can I cancel a full-vault scan?
Yes. Smart Dedupe can show the partial candidates collected before cancellation.
Review matches side by side
Each result shows two block previews side by side with a similarity score.
Copy or open a result
Copy copies the selected block text. Open navigates to its source and minimizes the results surface so the candidate list remains available.
Decide what to do with a match
A candidate is not an instruction to merge or delete. Review both sources and decide whether to:
- keep them separate
- merge useful material manually
- archive one source
- ignore the candidate
Does a score of 1.00 prove the blocks should be merged?
No. It is a strong exact or semantic signal. Review the source context and purpose before changing either note.
Does Smart Dedupe delete or merge notes automatically?
No. It presents likely matches for human review.
Interpret result-set limitations
A high score is not proof that blocks should merge. Cancelled scans can return partial results, and the full-vault semantic phase can stop after enough matches are collected, so the displayed set is not guaranteed to be exhaustive global top-N.
Troubleshooting Smart Dedupe
Lower the threshold when no matches appear, raise it or narrow scope when results are broad, start with current-note scan, confirm block preparation, and treat accelerated progress totals as approximate.