Beautiful, instant rendering — plus a built-in split-view editor with syntax highlighting, math, and diagrams built in. All in a native macOS app.
Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later · Safari 17.4 or later for Mermaid diagrams · Apple Silicon or Intel
The idea for MDViewer came from wanting a lightweight way to read .md files when working with Claude Code or Codex from the terminal.
Then we wanted to edit them too — so we added a built-in split-view editor. Viewer on the right, editor on the left, live preview as you type.
Features
Designed for developers, writers, and anyone who works with Markdown files every day.
Read
Opens and renders Markdown files instantly. Watches for file changes and live-reloads as you edit.
Auto-generated TOC sidebar from headings. Click to jump to any section with smooth scrolling.
27 languages highlighted with Shiki. Light and dark themes that follow macOS appearance.
Render inline and block LaTeX math beautifully with KaTeX — no extra setup required.
Flowcharts, sequence diagrams, Gantt charts, and more rendered directly in the document.
Local Markdown links open in the app. External links open in the browser. Images load from disk.
Six themes, and separate fonts for body text, headings and code, chosen in Settings > Appearance.
GitHub-style [^1] footnotes are listed at the end with links back to the text. :smile: and every other GitHub shortcode for a Unicode emoji become emoji.
A copy button appears when you hover over a code block.
Edit, find & export
Toggle a split-view editor with ⌘E. Edit on the left, live preview on the right. Start a new document with ⌘N, save with ⌘S. The editor follows the preview's font size.
Combine document windows into tabs with Window > Merge All Windows, and reopen files from File > Open Recent.
⌘F highlights every match in the preview and shows where you are, such as "3/12". Move between matches with Return and Shift-Return.
Open "MDViewer Help" from the Help menu for a live-rendered reference covering Markdown syntax and every Mermaid diagram type.
Export your document to PDF or HTML with a single click, preserving all styles and formatting, or print it with ⌘P.
Get started
No Homebrew, no setup, no configuration needed.
Grab the latest .zip from the Releases page: MDViewer-AppleSilicon.zip for Apple Silicon Macs, MDViewer-Universal.zip for Intel Macs.
Unzip the archive and drag MDViewer.app to your Applications folder.
Double-click any Markdown file or drop it onto the MDViewer icon in the Dock.
🔒 Signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple — Gatekeeper won't get in your way.
Open Source
MDViewer is built on these open-source libraries. Full license texts are included in the app bundle.
| Library | Purpose | License |
|---|---|---|
|
v12.0.2
|
Parses Markdown text and converts it to HTML for rendering. | MIT |
|
v1.x
|
Syntax highlighting for 27 programming languages using VS Code grammar. Supports dual light/dark themes via CSS variables. | MIT |
|
v0.18.9
|
Renders LaTeX math expressions — both inline $…$ and block $$…$$ — as high-quality HTML. |
MIT |
|
v12.0.0
|
Renders diagrams from text definitions — flowcharts, sequence diagrams, Gantt charts, and more. | MIT |
|
v4.1.0
|
Provides the table that turns emoji shortcodes such as :smile: into emoji. |
MIT |