Notion is prominent among the most powerful productivity tools. You can create knowledge bases, take notes, and even make landing sites for your business or product using various Notion templates. Despite this, there are alternatives to Notion that do a few things better which may be of importance to you.

Take Obsidian, for example. Thanks to a distinct note-taking UI, with tools like graphs and plugins, Obsidian is one of the best apps to build a personal database. But, if you've been using an alternate service for a while, you may be apprehensive about switching over due to concerns about maintaining your older data. Thankfully, that will be a complete non-issue with Obsidian. The service allows you to import your data from Notion natively, making it extremely easy to switch between the two services. So, if you've decided to create a personal knowledge management system on Obsidian, here's how to migrate your notes from Notion in just a few clicks.

Exporting your data from Notion

Before we can import our Notion data into Obsidian, the first step is to create a file consisting of all our Notion data in a format that can be read by other apps. Thankfully, Notion allows users to export data natively in an HTML format. Let's use this ability to create a file that we can then feed into Obsidian.

1. Click on your name in the top-left corner of the Notion app. Then, select the Settings option.
2. Navigate to the Settings section in the Workspace category using the pane on the left. Under the Export content label, choose the Export all workspace content option.
3. Here, change the Export format to HTML. Select Current view under Include databases, Everything under Include content, and enable the toggle next to Create folders for subpages. Then, hit the Export button.

You will now be given an option to download a ZIP file with your Notion data. Select the target path of your download and save the file to your computer. If you don't see the download screen, don't worry. You will also receive a link to download the exported file at your email ID.

Importing the Notion data into Obsidian

Now that you have all your Notion data in a compressed file, it's time to import it into Obsidian to complete the merger. Close the Notion window on your computer and follow the steps below.

1. Fire up Obsidian on your computer and head to the Settings page.
2. Navigate to the Community plugins page using the left pane and click on Turn on community plugins.
3. It's now time to install the Importer plugin. Once you click on the link, it will open inside Obsidian. Hit the Install button.
4. Once done, click on Enable to start using the plugin. Go back to the homepage of the Obsidian app.
5. On the left pane, you will see a new icon to bring up Importer and click on it.
6. In the pop-up window, select the File format as Notion (.zip). Then, click on Choose file and select the exported ZIP file from Notion in the Files to import section. Also, enable the Save parent pages in subfolders toggle before hitting Import.

All your Notion data will successfully be imported into Obsidian. Depending on how much data you have, it may take anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes for the import process to complete. Once it finishes, you will see all your Notion data in nested folders and sub-folders in the left pane.

Make the switch seamlessly

All it takes is a few minutes of your time and some mouse clicks to migrate all your Notion data to Obsidian. It's fast, free, and effective. In my experience, the transfer was seamless without any loss of data. If you have been using Notion for years and have a lot of data piled up, you may want to first delete any data that's not important before exporting the ZIP file, since that will make the process faster.