Capture timestamps

Capture a timestamp while you listen, and PodNotes inserts the playback time at your cursor as a link back to that moment in the episode.

Capture a timestamp

1. Play an episode in PodNotes. You can pause it before you capture.
2. Open a note in editing view.
3. Place the cursor where you want the timestamp.
4. Run PodNotes: Capture Timestamp from the command palette (Ctrl+P, or Command+P on macOS).

PodNotes inserts a list item with a link such as 00:12:41, followed by a space for your note. A capture replaces any selected text. Select the link, in Live Preview or reading view, to play the episode from that moment. To keep your timestamps in one note per episode, see Create episode notes.

Capture from a hotkey, the toolbar, or a headset

To capture from a hotkey:

1. Open Settings → Hotkeys.
2. Search for PodNotes: Capture Timestamp.
3. Assign a shortcut to it.

On a phone, add a capture button to the editor toolbar.

A headset button that sends the previous-track action also captures. If a note is open in an editor, the timestamp goes in at the cursor. If no note is open in an editor, PodNotes adds it to the end of the episode note. See Capture with a headset.

Capture a range

To mark a passage instead of a moment:

1. Play an episode in PodNotes.
2. In a note in editing view, place the cursor where the range goes.
3. Run PodNotes: Capture Last 10 Seconds or PodNotes: Capture Last 20 Seconds.

PodNotes inserts the range that ends at the current playback time, such as 00:12:31-00:12:41. It does not cut an audio clip. With the default Capture timestamp format, the range is a link that plays that passage and pauses at its end. With a format that uses {{time}}, the range is plain text.

The range commands insert a range in the style of your Capture timestamp format, as Timestamp tags describes. Commands lists when they are available.

Make timestamps clickable

If your captures come out as plain text with no link, your format most likely uses {{time}}, the default before PodNotes 2.21.0.

1. Open Settings → PodNotes.
2. Under Episode notes, set Capture timestamp format to - {{linktime}} with a space at the end.

New captures are links. Timestamps that you captured before stay plain text. If the format already uses {{linktime}}, the episode has no feed URL or local file to link to.

Compensate for reaction time

To capture a few seconds before you react:

1. Open Settings → PodNotes.
2. Under Episode notes, set Timestamp offset (s) to that whole number of seconds.

With an offset of 5, a capture at 00:12:46 inserts 00:12:41, and ranges move back by the same amount. A capture never goes below 00:00:00.

Change the format

Capture timestamp format under Episode notes decides what a capture inserts. It can hold text, Markdown, and line breaks around the timestamp tags, and it previews the result while an episode is loaded. See Example formats.

Limits of capture and links

Captures and links behave differently in these cases:

• Without a loaded episode or with an empty Capture timestamp format, PodNotes: Capture Timestamp shows “Play an episode and set a Capture timestamp format in settings to capture a timestamp.”
• {{linktime}} and {{linksegment}} insert plain text when the episode has no feed URL or local file to link to.
• At the very start of an episode, a range command shows “Play more of the episode before capturing a segment”.
• In a table cell, PodNotes escapes pipe characters and turns line breaks into spaces.
• A link finds its episode by title, despite changes in case, punctuation, or word order. If the podcast renames the episode with different words, the link shows “Episode not found”.
• A link to a private feed works only on a device where you saved that feed.
• A link to a local file needs the file in Local Files. See Downloads and local files.

Reference

Timestamp tags

Capture timestamp format accepts these four tags:

Tag	Inserts
{{time}}	The playback time as plain text.
{{linktime}}	The playback time as a link to that moment.
{{segment}}	A range as plain text. In a single capture, the playback time.
{{linksegment}}	A range as a link. In a single capture, a link to the playback time.

Each tag uses HH:mm:ss unless you add a time format after a colon, as in {{linktime:H:mm:ss}}.

The range commands adapt Capture timestamp format as follows. PodNotes uses a format that contains {{segment}} or {{linksegment}} unchanged. Otherwise {{time}} becomes {{segment}} and {{linktime}} becomes {{linksegment}}. A format with no time tag at all becomes - {{linksegment}}.

Example formats

Format	Inserts
- {{linktime}}	A list item with a link such as 00:12:41. This is the default.
{{linktime:H:mm:ss}}	A link such as 0:12:41, with no list marker.
> {{linktime}}	A blockquote line that starts with a link.
- {{time}}	A list item with the plain text 00:12:41 and no link.

Time formats

Time tags accept these tokens:

Part	Tokens	Meaning
Hours	H, HH	Total elapsed hours, unpadded or padded to at least two digits.
Twelve-hour clock	h, hh	Hour on a twelve-hour clock, unpadded or padded.
Minutes	m, mm	Minute within the hour, unpadded or padded.
Seconds	s, ss	Second within the minute, unpadded or padded.
AM or PM	A, a	Uppercase or lowercase clock label.

A backslash makes the next character literal. {{time:H\h mm\m ss\s}} inserts 0h 12m 41s. Square brackets do not mark literal text in time tags. Date tags use a different set of tokens.

PodNotes URI

Timestamp links and resume links open obsidian://podnotes. A captured link looks like this:

obsidian://podnotes?episodeName=The%20Home%20Depot&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.transistor.fm%2Facquired&time=761

The handler accepts these query parameters:

Parameter	Required	Meaning
url	Yes	Podcast feed URL, vault path of a local file, or the placeholder that stands for a private feed.
episodeName	Yes	Episode title.
time	No	Start time in seconds, zero or greater. It can have decimals.
endTime	No	End of a range in seconds, greater than time. Needs time.
end	No	Alias of endTime.
to	No	Alias of endTime.

When a link has no time, or an empty one, the episode resumes from its saved progress. An unplayed or finished episode starts at zero. When a link has more than one end parameter, endTime wins over end, and end wins over to.

A feed url must be a public HTTP or HTTPS address. A private-feed placeholder resolves only through a saved podcast and the feed address stored on that device. A local url needs a registered episode and its media file.

PodNotes percent-encodes query values, and also reads links from older versions that encode a space as +. The handler matches episodeName to an episode title regardless of case, and otherwise to the one title with the same words in any order and with any punctuation.