MarkPad

A small, simple Markdown reader and editor for Mac, Windows and Linux.

Download for macOS, Windows or Linux

---

You double-click a .md file, it opens, and it looks like a document rather than raw syntax. You type. It saves.

Install

Grab your file from the latest release.

• macOS 🍎 two dmgs, one per chip. aarch64 for Apple silicon, x64 for Intel. Not sure which? Apple menu, then About This Mac. Open the dmg, drag MarkPad into Applications.
• Windows 🪟 download the -setup.exe and run it. Installs for the current user, so no admin prompt.
• Linux 🐧 the .deb on Debian 12 or Ubuntu 22.04 and later, the .rpm on Fedora. Either one pulls in WebKitGTK if you haven't got it.

Nothing is code signed, because certificates cost money every year and this is free. Linux just installs, but macOS and Windows need one extra step on first launch:

• macOS: right-click the app, choose Open, then Open again.
• Windows: SmartScreen flags an unrecognised publisher. Click More info, then Run anyway.

Stuck on a message about a damaged app or a blocked installer? Troubleshooting has the exact wording and the fix.

What it does

• Opens and edits .md files, several at a time, in tabs
• Renders as you type, so you read a document instead of a source file
• Source view is one keystroke away when you want it
• Ctrl+K / ⌘K reaches every command, so no hunting through menus
• Tables, LaTeX and Mermaid diagrams preview in a popover
• Exports to HTML or PDF
• Light and dark, following your system setting
• Detects CRLF or LF on open and keeps it on save, which matters when files move between Windows, Mac and Linux

What it doesn't do

• No accounts, no sync, no telemetry
• No tags, backlinks or graph view
• No Markdown syntax that only works here
• No bundled Chromium. It uses the WebView already on your machine, which is how the installer stays under 4 MB

Your files are ordinary files in ordinary folders. Uninstall MarkPad and they still open in everything else.

Coming next

• A portable Windows build. One .exe you can drop on a USB stick or run on a machine you're not allowed to install anything on. Nothing to install, nothing left behind.

Try it and open an issue when something annoys you. That's what shapes the next version.

Build it yourself

You'll need Node 20+, pnpm and Rust.

pnpm install
pnpm icons      # generates the app icons, which aren't committed
pnpm tauri dev  # run it
pnpm tauri build  # build an installer

Tests and checks:

pnpm test        # editor tests (vitest)
pnpm typecheck   # tsc, no emit
cd src-tauri && cargo test

Tauri v2 for the shell, CodeMirror 6 for the editor, TypeScript and hand-written CSS for the chrome. No UI framework.

• Hard size and speed budgets live in CLAUDE.md and CI enforces them. If a change breaks one, the change is wrong and not the budget.
• Design decisions live in docs/decisions/. Worth reading before suggesting an architectural change.
• Owes a lot to MarkEdit, which is excellent and macOS only. This is the cross-platform take on the same idea.

Licence

MIT. See LICENSE.