River Sync for Obsidian

Email or SMS yourself quick notes and ideas throughout the day. River captures everything and syncs to Obsidian with AI-enhanced tagging.

⚠️ Requirements

This plugin connects to River, a paid service for managing your digital inbox.

Pricing:

• $5/month or $50/year - unlimited messages
• Sign up at river.dev

The plugin itself is free and open source. You need a River account to use it.

Features

• 📧 Email syncing - Automatically pull emails from your River inbox
• 📱 SMS/MMS syncing - Sync text messages and attachments
• 🤖 AI enhancement - Messages are processed and formatted by AI
• 🏷️ Auto-tagging - Smart topic detection and linking
• 📅 Event detection - Automatically detect calendar events, add them to Google Calendar
• 🔄 Automatic syncing - Configurable intervals or manual sync
• 🔐 OAuth authentication - One-click secure connection

Installation

From Community Plugins (Recommended)

1. Open Obsidian Settings
2. Navigate to Community Plugins → Browse
3. Search for "River Sync"
4. Click Install, then Enable

Manual Installation

1. Download main.js and manifest.json from the latest release
2. Create folder: YourVault/.obsidian/plugins/river-sync/
3. Copy both files to that folder
4. Reload Obsidian (Cmd/Ctrl + R)
5. Enable "River Sync" in Settings → Community Plugins

Setup

1. Open Settings → River Sync
2. Click "Connect to River"
3. Sign in to your River account in the browser
4. Click "Authorize"
5. The plugin will automatically configure itself
6. Done! Messages will start syncing

Configuration

Sync Settings

• Sync on startup: Automatically sync when Obsidian opens
• Sync interval: Minutes between automatic syncs (0 = manual only)

Organization

• Inbox folder: Where notes are created (e.g., Inbox/)
• Tag prefix: Prefix for auto-generated tags (e.g., river/)
• Add frontmatter: Include YAML metadata in notes
• Date format: Customize filename date format

How It Works

River Sync connects to your River staging ground and pulls pending messages. Each message is:

1. AI-enhanced - Content is cleaned and formatted
2. Tagged - Topics are automatically detected
3. Linked - Related nodes are suggested
4. Organized - Saved to your inbox folder

Example Note

---
source: email
from: john@example.com
received: 2025-01-14T10:30:00Z
contentType: task
---

# Email from john@example.com - Jan 14, 10:30 AM

Can you review the Q4 report by Friday?

**Topics:** #river/work #river/reports

**Detected:** Task
**Due:** Friday, Jan 17

Commands

• Sync notes from River - Manually trigger sync
• Test River connection - Verify connection status

Troubleshooting

"Not connected to River"

1. Go to Settings → River Sync
2. Click "Disconnect" if shown
3. Click "Connect to River"
4. Complete OAuth flow in browser

"Sync failed"

• Check your internet connection
• Verify your River subscription is active
• Try "Test River connection" command
• Check the console (Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + I) for errors

Messages not appearing

• Ensure messages are in your River staging ground
• Check the "Inbox folder" path is correct
• Verify sync interval is set (or manually sync)
• Check River dashboard for pending messages

Privacy & Security

• Authentication: OAuth 2.0 with secure tokens
• Data flow: Plugin → River servers → Your vault
• No third parties: No data sent to anyone except River
• Open source: Full source code available for audit

Support

• Website: river.dev
• Documentation: river.dev/docs
• Issues: GitHub Issues
• Email: support@river.dev

Development

Want to contribute or build locally?

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/dustinlyons/obsidian-river-sync.git
cd obsidian-river-sync

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build
npm run build

# The built files (main.js, manifest.json) can be copied to your vault

Roadmap

• Custom templates for different message types
• Bulk operations (archive, delete, move)
• Search and filter in staging ground
• Attachment preview

License

MIT License - See LICENSE file

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Made with ❤️ by Dustin Lyons

River is a product of River Technologies, Inc.