Native Markdown editor for macOS

A fast, native Markdown editor that gets out of the way.

WorkMD opens your .md files as a themed preview or a syntax-highlighted source editor — a window per file, or all of them folded into one. No Electron, no accounts, no clutter.

WorkMD app icon — a yellow hard hat with an engraved # on a dark rounded tile
7-day free trial $9.99 one-time macOS 14+ Apple silicon & Intel

Toggle editor ↔ preview with ⌘⇧P · syntax highlighting keeps the raw Markdown readable.

What it does

Everything you need to work with Markdown, and nothing you don't.

Open a file, read it beautifully, edit it in place, theme it to taste. WorkMD is a small native app that treats your files as files — no vault, no lock-in, no sync account.

Open .md your way

Double-click in Finder, drag onto the Dock, drop into a window, or File ▸ Open ⌘O. Your files stay right where they are.

A window per file

Open ten files, get ten windows — each with its own title, proxy icon, and edited-dot. Just like every other native Mac document app.

Consolidate into one

Window ▸ Consolidate All ⌥⌘M folds every open file into a single window with a left-hand open-files navigator. Pop any file back out again.

Drop a folder

Drag a folder in to get a lazy file-tree sidebar with the viewer on the right — browse a whole project of notes without importing anything.

Editor ⇄ preview

Toggle per window with ⌘⇧P, or set "open in Preview by default." The source editor highlights Markdown syntax — delimiters stay visible, it's never WYSIWYG.

Deep theming

15 built-in themes, a visual Theme Manager, a color-picker editor for your own, and proper system dark mode. Preview and editor restyle together — see the theming section.

Make it yours

15 built-in themes, a live Theme Manager, and a color-picker editor for your own.

Every theme is a small JSON file of real color tokens. WorkMD ships with 15, follows your system's light and dark setting automatically, and lets you build or tweak your own with a color picker. Browse them all in the Theme Manager — the cards below are rendered live in each theme's actual palette.

Theme Manager

A dedicated window to browse every theme with a live preview, curate an "activated set" you actually use, and set the active theme with a click.

Color-picker editor

Create a new theme from scratch or duplicate one and adjust its tokens with a color picker. Your themes save as JSON you own — bundled themes are never overwritten.

15 built-in themes

Trademark-safe homages of palettes you already love from editors like Obsidian & VS Code, plus balanced workmd Light and Dark and the warm Hard Hat default pair. Three are light, the rest dark.

Quick theme switcher

A liquid-glass pill lives in the window to cycle themes ⌃⌘T or flip light ↔ dark ⌃⌘L without leaving your file. Hide it in Settings if you'd rather not.

Per-file & system themes

Pin a favorite theme to a specific file, and let everything else follow your system appearance — WorkMD switches light ↔ dark automatically. The whole UI respects it, not just the preview.

Themes update separately

New themes arrive through a small public catalog — separate from the app — so the built-in set can grow without waiting for an app update. The direct build also auto-updates via Sparkle.

Browse, activate, and preview every theme in one place — stylized illustration.

Your own themes, safely

Duplicate any built-in theme, nudge its colors with the picker, and save. Custom themes live as your own JSON in ~/Library/Application Support/workmd/Themes/ — the bundled set is read-only and never touched.

A growing catalog

New bundled themes ship through a small, anonymous public catalog — no app update, no account. The direct-download build also updates itself with Sparkle when a new version lands.

A sample of the palette

preview.md
# Heading

Body text with an emphasis and a link.

A blockquote line.

code()

  • list item
Hard Hat Light
#FAF8F4 · light · default
preview.md
# Heading

Body text with an emphasis and a link.

A blockquote line.

code()

  • list item
Hard Hat Dark
#211F1B · dark · default
preview.md
# Heading

Body text with an emphasis and a link.

A blockquote line.

code()

  • list item
workmd Light
#FFFFFF · light
preview.md
# Heading

Body text with an emphasis and a link.

A blockquote line.

code()

  • list item
workmd Dark
#1B1F27 · dark
preview.md
# Heading

Body text with an emphasis and a link.

A blockquote line.

code()

  • list item
Midnight Violet
#282A36 · dark
preview.md
# Heading

Body text with an emphasis and a link.

A blockquote line.

code()

  • list item
Neon Harbor
#1A1B26 · dark
preview.md
# Heading

Body text with an emphasis and a link.

A blockquote line.

code()

  • list item
Polar Frost
#2E3440 · dark
preview.md
# Heading

Body text with an emphasis and a link.

A blockquote line.

code()

  • list item
Retro Hearth
#282828 · dark
preview.md
# Heading

Body text with an emphasis and a link.

A blockquote line.

code()

  • list item
Solar Parchment
#FDF6E3 · light
preview.md
# Heading

Body text with an emphasis and a link.

A blockquote line.

code()

  • list item
Pastel Mocha
#1E1E2E · dark

Ten of the 15 built-in themes shown. Build your own in the color-picker editor, or drop a JSON theme into your Themes folder and it shows up in the Theme Manager — no restart, no import.

How it works

Point WorkMD at your Markdown. It does the rest.

  1. 1
    Open a file or a folder. Double-click a .md in Finder, drop a file on the window, or drag in a whole folder for a lazy file-tree sidebar.
  2. 2
    Read it, or edit it. See a themed preview or a syntax-highlighted source editor, and flip between them with ⌘⇧P — nothing is hidden, delimiters stay visible.
  3. 3
    Make it yours. Pick one of 15 themes, pin one per file, or build your own in the color-picker editor. The whole window restyles, preview and editor together.

Your files stay plain Markdown, on your Mac. No vault, no import step, no sync account. WorkMD reads and writes the very same .md files everything else does — local-first, private, native.

Consolidate All folds every open file into one window — stylized illustration.

A closer look

Screenshots

Four real captures of one window — a repo folder dropped on WorkMD, file tree on the left, rendered preview on the right. What changes between shots is the theme: every file remembers its own, and the colored dots in the navigator mark which theme each one carries.

WorkMD in the Hard Hat Dark theme: a folder window with a file-tree sidebar listing a repository's folders and Markdown files, and a rendered preview of CLAUDE.md on a warm near-black background with amber headings. A Settings link is pinned at the bottom of the sidebar.
Hard Hat Dark, WorkMD's default dark theme, previewing a repo's CLAUDE.md in the folder view.
The same folder window in the Solar Parchment theme: cream background, blue links, the rendered preview of CONTRIBUTING.md beside the file tree. Small colored theme dots sit next to the filenames in the sidebar.
The same window in Solar Parchment — one click restyles preview, sidebar, and chrome together.
The same window in the Midnight Violet theme: dark indigo background with pink and purple accents, showing a README whose fenced code blocks are styled in the theme's palette. The compact editor-preview toggle sits at the top right of the content pane.
Midnight Violet on a README heavy with fenced code — code blocks pick up the theme's palette too.
The same window in the Solar Deep theme: deep teal background with blue links, previewing CONTRIBUTING.md. Each file in the sidebar navigator carries a colored dot marking the theme that file remembers.
Solar Deep — and every file in the navigator carries a dot marking its remembered theme.
Simple pricing
$9.99 once

Free for 7 days. Then $9.99, once.

A one-time purchase — no subscription, no seats, no renewal. Buy directly and updates arrive automatically, or get it from the Mac App Store.

$9.99 one-time 7-day free trial Notarized by Apple — at release Mac App Store — coming soon

Built by one independent developer. No investors, and no tracking or analytics in the app — a small, native tool made with care. WorkMD keeps your files as plain Markdown on your Mac, and every purchase directly supports indie software. Thank you.

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