Bring everything
across.
Obsidian, Notion, a folder of markdown, or a Word document — what to export first, what carries over, and the dry run that shows you exactly what will happen before anything is written.
Four steps, and
one of them is reading
Nothing is written until you have seen the summary of what the import is about to do.
Open the importer
Command palette (Cmd + K, or Ctrl + K) → “Import”, or right-click the folder in the sidebar you want the notes to land in. Nothing in the app you are leaving is touched at any point.
Choose a source
A folder of markdown, an Obsidian vault, a Notion export or a Word document. Ampersand reads each where it sits — you never have to unzip a Notion archive or flatten a vault first.
Read the dry run
Before a single file is written, Ampersand shows exactly what it will do: how many notes and attachments, where each one lands, and which names it will de-duplicate. Your vault is still untouched.
Import
Files are copied in and the search index, link graph and tag index rebuild themselves. The export you imported from is unchanged, so you can run it again into a different folder if the result is not what you wanted.
Whatever you
are coming from
A folder of markdown
Point Ampersand at any directory of .md files — an old notes folder, a docs directory, a repository. Subfolders are preserved exactly and nothing is rewritten. A name that would collide gets a numbered suffix rather than overwriting what is already there.
An Obsidian vault
Pick the vault folder. [[Wiki-links]] and #tags are native features here, so they keep working as links and tags rather than turning into text, and backlinks come back as soon as the index rebuilds. Obsidian callouts map onto Ampersand’s five kinds, and ![[embeds]] are rewritten as ordinary markdown embeds.
A Notion export
In Notion, export as “Markdown & CSV”, then hand Ampersand the .zip — there is no need to unpack it first. Notion staples a 32-character hash onto every filename; Ampersand strips them, so pages and the links between them arrive under the names you gave them.
A Word document
Choose a .docx and Ampersand converts it: headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, links and inline emphasis all become markdown, and images embedded in the file are pulled out and saved beside the note. Page layout, fonts, headers and footers are not markdown ideas and are left behind.
From the Notion export
Project Plan 8f3c1d09…d21a.md
Q3 Goals 5b1e77af…9c04.md
Roadmap 2c9d40b1…7fe3/
In your vault
Project Plan.md
Q3 Goals.md
Roadmap/
Your pages,
under their own names
A Notion export staples a 32-character identifier onto every file and folder, and onto every link between them. Ampersand strips those and rewrites the links to match, so what lands in your vault is the structure you built rather than the one Notion serialised.
Obsidian needs less translating, because the things people worry about losing — wiki-links and tags — are native features here rather than a compatibility mode. Callouts map onto Ampersand’s five kinds, which are stored as ordinary markdown alerts, so an imported callout is one you can edit like any other block.
- Folder structure preserved exactly
- Colliding names suffixed, never overwritten
- Links between imported pages rewritten to match
Structure survives,
because markdown has it
Headings, ordered and unordered lists, task lists, tables, block quotes, code fences and inline emphasis are all things the editor writes natively, so they arrive as real blocks you can drag and edit rather than as flattened text. The same is true of the richer pieces: a callout, a code block, a math expression — Ampersand stores every one of them as plain markdown, which is exactly why they can be imported at all.
Attachments and images land in an attachments folder at the top of the destination, with the links inside your notes rewritten to point at them. Files are only ever copied, so the folder or export you imported from is left exactly as it was, and a name that would collide is given a numbered suffix rather than overwriting anything. For a single file there is no dialog at all — drag a .md onto a folder in the sidebar and it is filed there.
Worth a look once it lands
- Links pointing at pages you chose not to import
- Notion databases, which export as CSV data rather than as pages
- Images that lived in the cloud rather than inside the export
- Anything that depended on a plugin in the app you came from
- Frontmatter fields your old tool used — Ampersand keeps them as they are
- A Word file’s page layout, which has no markdown equivalent
Importing is free
Leaving is the same job
.md in a folder you chose, so there is nothing to migrate off later: copy the folder, or export the whole vault as a Markdown bundle with its images alongside. The door swings both ways on purpose.Still deciding whether to move at all?
Good to know
How do I import my Obsidian vault into Ampersand?
Open the importer from the command palette, choose “Obsidian vault”, and point it at the vault folder. Ampersand copies the notes in, preserving your folder structure. Because [[wiki-links]] and #tags are native features rather than a compatibility layer, your graph keeps working: backlinks reappear once the index rebuilds at the end of the import. Obsidian callouts become Ampersand callouts, and ![[embeds]] are rewritten as ordinary markdown embeds.
How do I move my notes from Notion to Ampersand?
In Notion, use Export and choose “Markdown & CSV”, which gives you a .zip. In Ampersand, open the importer, choose “Notion export” and select that .zip — you do not need to unpack it. Notion appends a 32-character hash to every filename in an export; Ampersand strips those so your pages arrive under their real names, and rewrites the links between them to match.
Will importing change anything in the app I am coming from?
No. An import is a copy in one direction. Ampersand reads the folder, vault or export file you point it at and writes new files into your own vault; the original is never modified, moved or deleted. If the result is not what you wanted, delete the imported folder and run it again somewhere else.
Do my wiki-links, tags and backlinks survive an import?
Yes, for anything you import together. Wiki-links and tags are first-class in Ampersand, so they are indexed at the end of the import and backlinks appear straight away. A link pointing at a page you did not import stays in the text as written and simply does not resolve — nothing is silently rewritten or deleted, so you can import the missing pages later and the link starts working.
What happens to images and attachments when I import?
They are copied into an attachments folder at the top of the destination, and the links inside your notes are rewritten to point at them, so images still render. Files embedded inside a Word document or a Notion export are extracted and saved the same way. Nothing is left pointing at the app you came from.
Can I get my notes back out of Ampersand later?
Yes, and there is nothing to undo first. Everything an import produces is a plain .md file in a folder you chose, so moving on means copying that folder — no export step, no proprietary database, no lock-in. If you want a tidy archive with the referenced images alongside, export the whole vault as a Markdown bundle.
Move in once,
and never again.
Download Ampersand, import your Obsidian vault or Notion export, and keep writing in files that stay yours.
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