Notion to Obsidian or Joplin: What carries over?
In our three-page Notion test, both Obsidian and Joplin kept the notes editable and their internal links working. The TXT attachment behaved differently. Obsidian’s Notion ZIP importer kept the file byte for byte, while Joplin’s Markdown directory importer opened its contents as a note. The table below shows how each route handled subpages, checklists, and images.
| What we checked | Obsidian · Notion → File import | Joplin · Markdown directory import |
|---|---|---|
| Editable text | A copied imported note retained a text edit after reopening. The edit was also present on disk. | A copied imported note retained a text edit after switching away and back. |
| Checklist and table | Both rendered, including the checked and unchecked items. | Both rendered, including the checked and unchecked items. |
| Image and TXT | The image rendered inline. The TXT opened in Notepad++ from the note. Both files matched their source ZIP entries byte for byte. | The image rendered and its JEX resource matched the source PNG byte for byte. The TXT link opened a readable note. The JEX contained no separate TXT resource. |
| Internal links | On the November 11 rerun, the parent opened A and B, and A and B opened each other. | The parent opened A and B, and A and B opened each other. |
| Page hierarchy | A and B were grouped in the folder corresponding to the parent. The parent note sat alongside that folder. | The source export was already flat because subpage folders were disabled. The parent and children appeared as peer notes in one notebook, with links connecting them. |
The test used a synthetic parent page, two linked child pages, a checklist, a table, a PNG, and a TXT on Windows. On November 10–11, 2026, we tested Obsidian 1.15.0 with Importer 3.1.16 and Joplin 3.7.22 with sync disabled. For the Obsidian rerun, we exported HTML with subpages and subpage folders, inspected the ZIP, and imported it into a fresh vault with Notion → File import. For Joplin, we inspected the Markdown & CSV export, extracted the ZIP, and used MD–Markdown (Directory). Neither reported link result required manual repair. The edit tests used copies.
The first Notion ZIP run used an older HTML export that already lacked B’s return link to A. The November 11 export contained that link, and it worked after import. The reason it was absent from the earlier export remains unknown. In a separate test using Obsidian’s generic HTML importer, the parent links opened empty notes and the TXT link produced an empty note. The generic Markdown importer passed the link checks but converted the TXT to a Markdown note. These observations apply to the tested sample. Databases, complex workspaces, and lossless migration are outside scope.