mdreader

Description

A beautiful, native macOS markdown reader. Open any .md file and read it the way it was meant to be read.

Every other markdown tool on macOS is either an editor that happens to render, or a basic viewer with zero design craft. mdreader is a reader, not an editor. It treats markdown as a first-class reading experience with proper typography, syntax highlighting, and a design that gets out of the way.

Features

• Beautiful typography — Lora serif for body, DM Sans for UI, IBM Plex Mono for code
• Syntax highlighting — powered by highlight.js
• Dark and light mode — defaults to your system preference
• Multi-window — open multiple files in separate windows, all under one dock icon
• File browser sidebar — open a folder and browse all its markdown files
• Table of contents — auto-generated from headings with scroll tracking
• Source view — toggle raw markdown with syntax-highlighted coloring
• Click to copy — inline code and code blocks, with toast notification
• Live reload — file changes on disk are reflected instantly
• Drag and drop — drop any .md file onto the window

Installation

Homebrew

brew install rvanbaalen/tap/mdreader
sudo ln -sf $(brew --prefix)/opt/mdreader/mdreader.app /Applications/mdreader.app

From source

git clone https://github.com/rvanbaalen/mdreader.git
cd mdreader
./build.sh
open mdreader.app

Usage

mdreader README.md
mdreader ./docs
open -a mdreader README.md

Or just open the app and use ⌘O / ⌘⇧O.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
New window	⌘N
Close window	⌘W
Open file	⌘O
Open folder	⌘⇧O
Toggle sidebar	⌘\
Toggle table of contents	⌘⇧E
Toggle source view	⌘⇧S
Toggle theme	⌘⇧T

Architecture

An NSWindow with a transparent titlebar, native traffic lights, and a single WKWebView. All UI is HTML/CSS/JS (React + Tailwind). Swift handles file I/O, menus, and window management. Each window is an independent WindowController with its own web view and file state. The design system is adapted from robinvanbaalen.nl.

Development

npm run dev    # build Swift (debug), start Vite dev server, launch app with HMR
npm run build  # production build
npm start      # open the built app

Web changes are instant via Vite HMR. Swift changes require restarting npm run dev.

License

MIT.