Note Lock

Some notes are not for the people sitting next to you on the train.

The Celestial Vault includes a frontend password gate for any note tagged with *Locked* in its categories. The note's content is hidden behind a soft cover until you enter your password — even though the file is still readable on disk.

How To Lock A Note

In the note's frontmatter, add *Locked* to the categories: list:

---
categories:
  - "*Notes*"
  - "*Locked*"
---

That's it. The lock activates immediately. Reload the note (or open it fresh) and you'll see a password prompt instead of the content.

What "Locked" Actually Does

What the lock does well:

• Hides the note's text from anyone glancing at your screen
• Hides the note's content if you accidentally open it during a screen share
• Adds friction to opening the note (so muscle-memory-clicking the wrong link doesn't expose the content)
• Persists the unlock for the session — once you've unlocked once, you don't have to re-enter the password until Obsidian restarts

Setting Your Password

You choose your own password:

Settings → Celestial Plugin → Polish & atmosphere → Note Lock password

Type a password, hit Enter, done. To replace it later, type a new one in the same field. The small × button next to the field clears the password entirely (the lock goes inactive until you set a new one).

A few things worth knowing:

• The password is stored only as a hash, never as plain text. Nobody reading your settings file learns your password.
• It's stored locally and does not sync between devices unless your .obsidian/ folder syncs (see Syncing Time Garden Between Devices).
• Until a password is set, locked notes stay open. They show a gentle reminder that a lock is waiting to be configured, but nothing is hidden. No surprise lockouts on a half-configured feature.

Choosing The Locked Category

By default, the marker category is *Locked*. You can rename it:

Settings → Celestial Plugin → Polish & atmosphere → Locked category

Type any category page name (say, Private or Sealed), and from then on notes whose categories include that wikilink get the lock overlay instead. Everything else on this page works the same; just substitute your category name for *Locked*.

Unlocking A Note

When you open a locked note, you see:

• A soft overlay covering the note content
• A password input
• A small "Unlock" button

Type the password, hit Enter. The overlay fades. The note is readable for the rest of your session.

If you reload Obsidian (Cmd/Ctrl + P → "Reload app without saving") or quit and reopen, you'll need to re-enter the password.

The Locked Category Page

The Locked.md file at the vault root is the category page for all your locked notes. It works like any other category page — it embeds a Locked.base view that auto-aggregates every note tagged *Locked*.

Open Locked.md and you'll see the table of all your locked notes. The category page itself isn't password-protected (it just shows note titles), but each individual locked note's content is.

Locking An Existing Note

You can lock a note you've already written:

1. Open the note
2. Add *Locked* to its categories: frontmatter
3. The lock activates on the next reload

You don't need to do anything special to "encrypt" the existing content — the lock just hides whatever's already there.

Unlocking Permanently

To remove a lock, open the note (unlock it temporarily) and delete *Locked* from its categories. The note becomes a regular note again, no overlay.

Disabling Note Lock Globally

If you want to disable the entire feature:

Settings → Celestial Plugin → Polish & atmosphere → Note Lock → toggle off.

All *Locked* notes become readable without a password. Re-enabling restores the password gate.

(Useful temporarily, e.g., if you forgot your password and want to read a note without disabling category-based filtering.)

A Common Question

"Can I have different passwords for different locked notes?"

No. The Note Lock has a single vault-wide password. If you need finer-grained protection (different secrets for different sets of notes), the recommendation is:

• Use the single password for vault-wide sensitive content
• Use a dedicated password manager for truly secret information

Note Lock is designed for "things I don't want my screen to show by accident", not "things that absolutely must never be readable."

Up Next

• Wikilink Categories — how the *Locked* category works under the hood
• The 36 Category Pages — the category-pages system Note Lock plugs into
• Atmosphere & Polish Toggles — turning Note Lock on/off