Interactive preview
Tick a task box in the preview and the Markdown source is edited to match. Scrolling stays in sync both ways.
v0.2.2 · Swift 6 · SwiftUI · TextKit 2
Markdown, native to the Mac.
Rebuilt from zero.
A new MacDown for Apple Silicon: a free, open-source Markdown editor for macOS 26, written in Swift as the spiritual successor to MacDown. Dark source on the left, live preview on the right, re-rendered in milliseconds as you type.
Download .dmg
$ brew install --cask xuanji86/tap/macdown2
7.5 ms
per keystroke on a 1 MB document. MacDown 0.7.3 takes 78.5 ms.
4 ms vs ~500 ms
with 200 formulas on the page, against MacDown 0.7.3.
0 page reloads
Incremental: only the sections you changed re-render. No full-page reload.
Technology
A native Markdown editor on the modern Mac stack.
MacDown2.0 shares an idea with MacDown, not its code. Every layer was chosen for the Mac of today.
Swift 6 + SwiftUI
Native app code in Swift 6 language mode with strict concurrency, an interface written in SwiftUI.
language · UI
TextKit 2
The editor runs on Apple’s current text engine.
editor
tree-sitter
Incremental syntax highlighting: an edit re-parses only what it touched.
highlighting
markdown-it, incremental
The preview re-renders only the sections you changed and patches them into the page, never reloading it.
renderer
macOS 26
Made for the current release: Liquid Glass and five Dock icon styles.
platform
Universal binary
Runs natively on Apple Silicon (M1 to M5), no Rosetta; the same download runs on Intel. Sparkle handles updates.
distribution
Performance
Live preview speed: measured, not promised.
Time to update the preview after one edit, layout included, against MacDown 0.7.3. Lower is better.
| Test | MacDown2.0 | MacDown 0.7.3 | Faster |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12.6 KB document | 3.1 ms | 8.6 ms | 2.8× |
| 50 KB document | 3.2 ms | 10.7 ms | 3.3× |
| 1 MB document | 7.5 ms | 78.5 ms | 10× |
| 200 formulas | 4.1 ms | 495.5 ms | 121× |
| 300 code blocks | 3.8 ms | 48.3 ms | 13× |
Median per-edit preview update, including layout. Measured on an Apple M5 Pro running macOS 27.2, offscreen: the clock runs from the edit until the preview is laid out, and the preview paints on the next display frame. MacDown 0.7.3 reloads the whole page on every keystroke; MacDown2.0 re-renders only the sections that changed.
Features
Write Markdown on the left. Read the live preview on the right.
GitHub Markdown
GFM tables, task lists, footnotes, GitHub alerts and ==highlight==.
Math, code, diagrams
KaTeX math, highlight.js code blocks and Mermaid diagrams.
Front matter
YAML or TOML front matter, hidden or shown as a table.
CJK-aware emphasis
Bold and italic work next to CJK punctuation.
Workspace
Finder-style file tree, tabs, full-text search across the folder and an outline.
Encodings
UTF-8, UTF-16, GB18030, Shift_JIS, Windows-1252, Mac Roman. Files changed elsewhere reload.
Safe export
HTML, paginated PDF and print. Exported HTML is sanitized.
Quick Look
Press Space in Finder to see the rendered document.
Quarto
Preview of callouts, divs and cross-references. Code cells are highlighted, never run.
Themes
Seven editor and eight preview themes, chosen independently or following the system.
Two languages
English and Simplified Chinese interface, set per app.
Workspace
Open a folder as a Markdown workspace. Work across every file.
A sidebar with Finder’s own icons, tabs above the editor, search over the whole folder with a regex switch, and an outline of the current document.
⇧⌘O open folder⇧⌘F search⌘N new
Command line
macdown2: Markdown to HTML and PDF from the terminal.
Open files and folders in the app, or render HTML and PDF headless, without a window or a Dock icon. The Homebrew cask installs it for you.
$ macdown2 notes.md docs/# a folder opens as a workspace
$ macdown2 .# this folder
$ cat draft.md | macdown2# open piped text
$ macdown2 render a.md --standalone -o a.html# headless
$ macdown2 render a.md --export pdf -o a.pdf# no window
Download MacDown2.0 for Mac
Download .dmg
$ brew install --cask xuanji86/tap/macdown2
Requires macOS 26 or later; one build for Apple Silicon and Intel. Free and open source. The app is not notarized: the first time you open a downloaded copy, go to System Settings › Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. The Homebrew cask clears the quarantine flag for you. Install notes in the README