The latest articles on DEV Community by Kevin Barrett (@kevboh). https://dev.to/kevboh https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3218351%2F05d9cee6-53a1-4f55-8935-3cc5ffee575c.jpeg https://dev.to/kevboh en Kevin Barrett Fri, 06 Jun 2025 20:04:52 +0000 https://dev.to/kevboh/send-emails-into-obsidian-via-postmark-3aep https://dev.to/kevboh/send-emails-into-obsidian-via-postmark-3aep <p>This is a submission for the <a href="https://dev.to/challenges/postmark">Postmark Challenge: Inbox Innovators</a>.</p> <h2> What I Built </h2> <p>My cofounder and I run <a href="https://screen.garden" rel="noopener noreferrer">screen.garden</a>, a SaaS service that brings realtime collaboration and web editing to Obsidian. When we saw the Postmark challenge we realized what an opportunity Inbound email support is: we could combine it with our platform to allow emailing straight into screen.garden, and thus straight into your Obsidian vault.</p> <p><a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fohlj6ps7gfhg497nttgd.gif" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fohlj6ps7gfhg497nttgd.gif" alt="A small demo of emailing into an Obsidian vault"></a></p> <p>We added a feature we're calling <a href="https://screen.garden/blog/email-to-vault/" rel="noopener noreferrer">email automations</a>. Email automations support custom aliases scoped to just your screen.garden team for privacy; alternatively, you can make an alias public to allow for more flexible integrations, like getting newsletters delivered straight to Obsidian.</p> <h2> Demo </h2> <p>We can't safely share credentials here, but there are instructions on how to set this up in our linked blog post above, and a demo video follows:</p> <p> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0CR4hRGDQMM"> </iframe> </p> <h2> Code Repository </h2> <p>screen.garden is closed-source—we’d be happy to give a tour of the code as-needed.</p> <h2> How I Built It </h2> <p>screen.garden is built on an Elixir stack, using Phoenix, LiveView, and Oban, among others. We host on AWS. Here’s how we built this feature:</p> <ol> <li>We added database models for inbound email addresses, including some metadata for if any email address should be able to create a note.</li> <li>We added routing and a controller to act as a webhook recipient. The webhook checks the database for a matching recipient address and uses it to figure out auth (is the sender good to create a note?) and where the note should go.</li> <li>If everything looks good, we grab the text body from the webhook payload (thanks Postmark!) and run that through our bespoke note creation backend.</li> </ol> <p>It's really a testament to the inbound email feature's design simplicity that we were able to do this so quickly and easily. Having this feature opens up a ton of workflow options with Obsidian, like subscribing to newsletters directly in Obsidian or automating remote voice notes with WhisperMemos.</p> devchallenge postmarkchallenge webdev api