winget install --id=Sarat.MarkQuill -e MarkQuill opens Markdown files in a clean reading view and lets you edit them inline like a document, or as raw Markdown. Math, Mermaid diagrams and code highlighting work offline.
A small, fast Markdown viewer and editor for macOS, Windows and Linux.
MarkQuill opens .md files in a clean reading view and lets you edit them inline like a document, or as raw Markdown, one shortcut apart. It uses your system's own web engine instead of bundling a browser, so the download is only about 5 MB on Windows and Linux and 11 MB on macOS (Quick Look included).
| Typical Electron editor | MarkQuill | |
|---|---|---|
| Download | Usually 80 MB or more | 5–11 MB |
| Engine | Bundled Chromium | The one your OS already has (WebKit, WebView2, WebKitGTK) |
| Works offline | Usually | Always: math, diagrams and code colors are bundled |
| Quick Look (macOS) | Rarely | Press Space on a .md file in Finder to see it rendered |
macOS (Homebrew):
brew tap sarat03/markquill https://github.com/sarat03/markquill
brew install --cask markquill
Windows (winget, coming soon: the package is waiting for approval):
winget install Sarat.MarkQuill
Linux, Debian, Ubuntu or Mint:
curl -fL "$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/sarat03/markquill/releases/latest | grep -o 'https://[^"]*amd64\.deb')" -o /tmp/markquill.deb && sudo apt install /tmp/markquill.deb
Linux, Fedora:
sudo dnf install "$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/sarat03/markquill/releases/latest | grep -o 'https://[^"]*x86_64\.rpm')"
Or get the installer from Releases:
| OS | File |
|---|---|
| macOS, Apple silicon (M1 and later) | MarkQuill_x.y.z_mac-m-arm.dmg |
| macOS, Intel | MarkQuill_x.y.z_mac-intel-x64.dmg |
| Windows 10/11, x64 | MarkQuill_x.y.z_win-x64-setup.exe or MarkQuill_x.y.z_win-x64.msi |
| Windows 11, ARM | MarkQuill_x.y.z_win-arm-setup.exe |
| Linux: Debian 12+, Ubuntu 22.04+, Mint 21+ | MarkQuill_x.y.z_linux-amd64.deb |
| Linux: Fedora | MarkQuill_x.y.z_linux-x86_64.rpm |
The builds are not code-signed yet, so the first launch shows a warning:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/MarkQuill.app in Terminal, then open it again.sudo apt install ./MarkQuill_*.deb or sudo dnf install ./MarkQuill-*.rpm. The package pulls in the system's WebKitGTK.Quick Look on macOS. Select a Markdown file in Finder and press Space: it renders with the same page as View mode (math, diagrams, highlighted code), without opening the app. It comes with the app; open MarkQuill once after installing so macOS picks it up.
Read, edit or write source, one shortcut apart
/ on an empty line for the Quick Insert menu (headings, lists, tables, math, diagrams…), or after a space mid-line for inline items (link, image, inline math, date…).Dates. Insert today's date from the Insert menu or with /date. Pick the format in Settings (2026-09-30, 30/09/2026, 09/30/2026, Sep 30, 2026 and more); it's saved as plain text.
Blocks. Click the badge in a block's margin (¶, H1…) to duplicate it, turn it into another kind or delete it. Drag the badge to move the block.
Rendering (all offline): CommonMark and GFM (tables, task lists, strikethrough, autolinks), footnotes, [toc], ==highlight==, ^sup^ / ~sub~, YAML front matter, sanitized HTML, KaTeX math, and diagrams: Mermaid (flowchart, sequence, Gantt…), markmap mind maps and flowchart.js.
Files and tabs
./assets (or ./images) next to the document and never overwrite an existing file.Export and copy. Export to HTML (self-contained), PDF or Markdown. PDF export shows the pages as they'll print: pick the paper size (A4, Letter, Legal, A3, A5), orientation, margins, font size, line height, a header and page numbers. The PDF is saved directly, always in light colors. Copy as Markdown, rich text, HTML or plain text.
Appearance. Auto/light/dark theme; sans, serif or mono text; size, line height and page width; code font, size, tab width and colors (GitHub, VS Code, Red Accent); plus your own CSS. All changes apply live.
On Windows and Linux, use Ctrl for ⌘, Alt for ⌥ and Shift for ⇧. The app shows them that way too.
| Action | Keys | Action | Keys | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| View / Edit / Source | ⌘1 / ⌘2 / ⌘3 | Open… | ⌘O | |
| Save | ⌘S | Find & replace | ⌘F | |
| New tab / close tab | ⌘T / ⌘W | New window | ⌘N | |
| Next / previous tab | Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+⇧Tab | Open documents sidebar | ⌘\ | |
| Settings | ⌘, | Paragraph / Heading 1–6 | ⌥⌘0 / ⌥⌘1–6 | |
| Quote | ⌥⌘Q | Ordered / bullet / task list | ⌥⇧⌘O / U / X | |
| Duplicate block | ⇧⌘P | New paragraph / delete block | ⇧⌘N / ⇧⌘D |
The block shortcuts (headings, quote, lists, duplicate, new paragraph, delete) work in Edit mode.
The whole app (UI, editing, settings, export) is one web page, web/index.html, built on the bundled Vditor editor. A thin native shell hosts it and does only what a web page can't: file dialogs, reading and writing files, the clipboard, printing and windows.
web/ The app: index.html (plain HTML/CSS/JS, no framework, no bundler)
vditor/ Bundled editor engine: rendering, math, diagrams, code colors
src-tauri/ Cross-platform shell (Rust + Tauri 2) for macOS, Windows and Linux
src/main.rs The native commands, session restore, file handling
tauri.conf.json App name, identifier, file associations, bundling, updater
tauri.macos.conf.json macOS only: bundles the Quick Look extension, ad-hoc signs the app
icons/source/ App icon: SVG sources and build-icons.sh (light and dark on macOS)
package.json Tauri CLI scripts: dev, build
macos/ Mac-only extras (Swift)
App/ The original native macOS shell (Cocoa + WKWebView)
QuickLook/ Quick Look extension: spacebar in Finder renders with the same page
build-ql.sh Builds the Quick Look extension (used by the Tauri build and build.sh)
build.sh Builds build/MarkQuill.app with Quick Look embedded
.github/workflows/ CI: tests, build and launch check (Linux per pull request, every OS per release)
The page talks to its shell with native.postMessage({cmd, ...}) and gets a promise back. There are eleven commands: state, open, save, rename, asset, export, copy, print, link, newWindow and closeWindow. A new shell only needs to answer these; the page doesn't change. The Tauri shell also answers version, fetchUpdate and installUpdate for in-app updates, and pdf, which writes the page boxes straight to a PDF file; the page only uses them when it runs in Tauri.
Needs Rust and Node.js 18+. On Linux, also the WebKitGTK dev packages:
sudo apt install build-essential file libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev libxdo-dev libssl-dev
Then:
npm install
npm run dev
npm run dev runs the app. npm run build creates installers in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/. cargo test in src-tauri/ runs the unit tests. The app icon is drawn in src-tauri/icons/source/ (SVG); after editing it, run src-tauri/icons/source/build-icons.sh on a Mac with Xcode to rebuild every icon file.
Needs the Xcode command line tools:
macos/build.sh
open build/MarkQuill.app
This builds build/MarkQuill.app with the Quick Look extension embedded. After that, pressing spacebar on a .md file in Finder renders it with the same page the app uses. The Tauri build (npm run build on a Mac) embeds the same extension.
Edit web/index.html while npm run dev is running, then reload the window (right-click → Reload). Every shell loads the same file, so a UI change reaches every platform.
Bug reports, fixes and improvements are welcome. CONTRIBUTING.md covers setup, where things live and what a pull request needs.
Please report security problems privately, not in a public issue. SECURITY.md explains how, and what MarkQuill does with your files and the network. In short: no telemetry, no network requests of its own, and HTML in documents is sanitized.
MarkQuill is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. You may use, study, share and modify it. If you distribute it, modified or not, you must do so under the GPL-3.0 and make the source code available.
Copyright © 2026 Sarat.
Bundled third-party components keep their own licenses. These include the Vditor editor (MIT, © B3log) in web/vditor/, along with the math, diagram and code-color libraries it ships.