---
title: "01 Importing Markdown"
canonical_url: https://mdflow.cz/share/c/h0L7MvX5Cy5sST3qPnApqHOmrQ36JTVy169qJMtDMya9Kc30zm04cg9OuPSSPwvj/3f705ca5-b0f7-45ed-82c5-b309cab6c953
md_url: https://mdflow.cz/share/c/h0L7MvX5Cy5sST3qPnApqHOmrQ36JTVy169qJMtDMya9Kc30zm04cg9OuPSSPwvj/3f705ca5-b0f7-45ed-82c5-b309cab6c953.md
visibility: public
---

# Importing Markdown

Bring existing markdown into MDflow by dragging it in.

## What you can import

- **`.md` and `.markdown` files.**
- **Multiple files at once.**
- **A whole folder**, including its subfolders.

Drag files into the sidebar, or select them through the file picker.

## Importing a folder tree

This is the useful one if you are migrating from another tool.

Drag an entire folder into the sidebar and MDflow **recreates the hierarchy as nested MDflow folders**. Your structure arrives intact rather than flattened into a pile.

Two sensible behaviours while it does this:

- **Only markdown files are imported.** Everything else in the folder is ignored.
- **Folders containing no markdown are skipped**, rather than recreated as empty shells. If you drag a repository, you do not get its `node_modules` tree back as folders.

## Choosing a destination

- **Import into an existing folder** by selecting it first.
- **Import with nothing selected** and MDflow creates a **timestamped folder** for the batch, so an import never scatters files into your tree unpredictably.

## What is preserved

The **markdown source is preserved as-is**, as an editable document. MDflow does not reformat, normalize, or convert your text — what you wrote is what you get.

Frontmatter, unusual syntax, and tool-specific conventions all survive, because to MDflow they are just characters in the body.

## Name collisions

Duplicate imported filenames are **automatically disambiguated** with ` (2)`, ` (3)` and so on. An import never overwrites an existing document.

## Skipped files

MDflow **reports unsupported or oversized skipped files** at the end of the import, rather than failing silently. If something did not arrive, the summary tells you.

## Limits

- **500 KiB per file.** Larger files are skipped and reported.
- Your plan's document cap applies: **100 documents on Free, 10,000 on Pro**. An import that would exceed it will not complete.

## Migrating from another tool

Most markdown tools — Obsidian, VS Code, a git repository of notes — store plain `.md` files in ordinary folders. Export or locate that folder, drag it in, and the structure and content arrive together.

Things that will **not** come across, because they are not markdown:

- Attachments and images that live beside your notes (only markdown files are imported; add images afterwards by dragging them into the editor).
- Tool-specific databases, tags, or metadata held outside the files.
- Wiki-style `[[links]]`, which import as literal text. MDflow's internal links use `@` mentions — see [03 Linking Documents Together](/doc/6a2085ea-444c-44ae-b9d2-43965e1ce5b6).