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Virtual Events

Show recurring events beyond your generation horizon without creating physical files.

Calendar view showing both physical events (solid) and virtual events (far future recurring instances)

How Virtual Events Work​

Virtual events are read-only calendar entries that extend your recurring series beyond the physical notes you've generated. They appear in the calendar view but don't create actual files in your vault.

Physical vs Virtual Events​

Physical Events (up to "Future instances count" setting):

  • Actual .md files created in your vault
  • Inherit complete structure from configuration node (frontmatter + content)
  • Editable and available for batch operations
  • Searchable within Obsidian
  • Take up storage space

Virtual Events (beyond generation horizon):

  • Calendar-only display items showing recurring pattern
  • Visual continuation of your recurring schedule into the future
  • Read-only (cannot be edited or selected for batch operations)
  • Don't create physical files, have no properties, or consume storage

Benefits​

Vault Management​

  • Keep your vault lean - avoid cluttering with hundreds of future notes
  • Reduce search noise - only current/near-future events appear in searches
  • Faster vault performance - fewer files to index and sync

Planning Visibility​

  • See long-term patterns - visualize your recurring schedule months/years ahead
  • Spot scheduling conflicts - identify overlapping events even far in the future
  • Plan around recurring commitments - understand your availability patterns

Configuration​

The physical/virtual boundary is controlled by the "Future instances count" setting. See Recurring Events - Generation Control for details on counting logic, ranges, and per-event overrides.

Converting Virtual to Physical: Increase "Future instances count" in settings to generate physical files for previously virtual events.

Example​

Weekly team meetings with "Future instances count" = 2 creates 6 physical files (2 weeks × 3 days). Beyond that, virtual events display the pattern indefinitely without creating files.

Context Menu​

Right-click any virtual event to access limited context menu actions. Since virtual events have no backing file, actions like edit, delete, preview, and file operations are unavailable. Available actions:

  • Go to source: Navigate to the source event in the calendar (switches to week view and highlights for 5 seconds)
  • Edit source event: Open the source recurring event's edit modal
  • Enlarge: View the source event's properties in an enlarged modal

Manual Virtual Events​

Manual virtual events are calendar entries you create without a backing vault file. Use them for lightweight time blocking and planning — reserve calendar time without cluttering your vault with extra notes.

Creating Manual Virtual Events​

Toggle the Virtual pill in the modal header (next to the title). When active, the pill highlights in your accent color. The event appears on the calendar but no .md file is created.

Storage​

Manual virtual events are stored in a Virtual Events.md file inside your calendar folder. The file contains a prisma-virtual-events code fence with JSON data. Opening the file shows an interactive table of all virtual events.

Each virtual event stores: title, start/end datetime, all-day flag, and frontmatter properties.

Converting Between Virtual and Physical​

  • Right-click a physical event → "Make virtual": Deletes the backing file and stores the event metadata as a virtual entry. Title, dates, and properties are preserved.
  • Right-click a virtual event → "Make real": Creates a backing .md file from the stored metadata and removes the virtual entry.
  • Edit modal: Toggle the Virtual pill in the modal header to convert in either direction.
  • Batch conversion: Select multiple events in batch selection mode and use the "Make Virtual" or "Make Real" buttons to convert them all at once. See Batch Operations.
note

Converting physical → virtual preserves frontmatter properties but not note body content.

Undo / Redo​

All virtual event operations are fully undoable:

  • Creating a virtual event (from create modal)
  • Deleting a virtual event (from context menu)
  • Converting physical → virtual (from edit modal or context menu)
  • Converting virtual → physical (from edit modal or context menu)

Use the standard undo/redo hotkeys or the plugin's undo command to reverse any of these operations. Undoing a conversion restores the original state — the backing file is recreated or the virtual entry is restored with its original data.

Open Virtual Events File​

Use the command palette command "Open virtual events file" to navigate directly to the Virtual Events.md file for a calendar. You can assign a hotkey to this command in Settings → Hotkeys.

Context Menu​

Manual virtual events support a subset of context menu actions:

  • Edit event: Open the edit modal to change title, dates, or properties
  • Delete event: Remove from the virtual events file
  • Make real: Convert to a physical event with a backing file
  • Enlarge: View event properties in an enlarged modal

Actions that require a backing file (preview, open file, stopwatch, duplicate, move, skip) are unavailable.