Awesome Markdown for Mac

A curated list of the best Markdown tools, viewers, editors, and resources for macOS.

Contents

• Viewers
• Editors
• QuickLook Plugins
• CLI Tools
• Mermaid & Diagrams
• Converters
• Resources

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Viewers

Apps focused on reading and rendering Markdown beautifully.

App	Price	Native	Mermaid	QuickLook	Notes
MacMD Viewer	$9.99	SwiftUI	Yes	Yes	Native macOS viewer with live reload, syntax highlighting, and Mermaid diagrams.
Marked 2	$13.99	Yes	No	No	Mature viewer with custom styles and export options.
Peek	$7.99	Yes	No	Yes	Lightweight QuickLook extension for Markdown.

Editors

Apps for writing Markdown (with preview).

App	Price	Native	Notes
Typora	$14.99	Electron	WYSIWYG Markdown editor. Seamless live preview.
iA Writer	$49.99	Yes	Minimalist writing app with focus mode.
Ulysses	$5.99/mo	Yes	Full writing environment with publishing.
Bear	$2.99/mo	Yes	Notes app with Markdown support and beautiful themes.
Obsidian	Free	Electron	Knowledge base with bidirectional linking.
Nota	Free (beta)	Electron	Pro writing app for Markdown with terminal integration. Currently in beta.
MacDown	Free	Yes	Open-source editor. Not actively maintained since 2020.
Zettlr	Free	Electron	Academic writing with Zettelkasten support.

QuickLook Plugins

Preview .md files by pressing Space in Finder.

• MacMD Viewer — Full-featured QuickLook extension with Mermaid diagrams and syntax highlighting.
• QLMarkdown — Open-source QuickLook generator for Markdown files.
• Glance — All-in-one Quick Look plugin for developers. (Archived, no longer maintained.)

CLI Tools

• Glow — Render Markdown in the terminal with style.
• mdcat — cat for Markdown. Renders in terminal.
• grip — Preview GitHub-flavored Markdown locally.
• pandoc — Universal document converter. Markdown to anything.
• markdownlint-cli — Lint your Markdown files.

Mermaid & Diagrams

• Mermaid — JavaScript-based diagramming and charting tool from text.
• Mermaid Live Editor — Online editor for Mermaid diagrams.
• MacMD Viewer — Renders Mermaid diagrams inline within Markdown files on Mac.
• kroki — Unified API for 20+ diagram types.

Converters

• pandoc — The Swiss Army knife of document conversion.
• markdown-pdf — Markdown to PDF converter.
• wkhtmltopdf — HTML/Markdown to PDF via WebKit.
• Prince — High-quality PDF generation.

Resources

Guides

• Markdown Guide — Comprehensive reference for Markdown syntax.
• GitHub Flavored Markdown Spec — Official GFM specification.
• CommonMark Spec — Standard Markdown specification.

Cheat Sheets

• Markdown Cheat Sheet — Quick reference for all Markdown syntax.
• GitHub Markdown Cheat Sheet — Popular community reference.

Tutorials

• Markdown Tables Guide — Complete guide to creating tables in Markdown.
• Mermaid Diagram Guide — Getting started with Mermaid diagrams.
• Links in Markdown — Every link syntax explained.

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Contributing

Contributions welcome! Open a PR to add a tool or resource.

License