✨ Free & Open Source Desktop App

Light to the core. Elegant by design.

Notepad-fast startup · Obsidian-pretty rendering · Zero Electron

GlanceMD is a cross-platform Markdown viewer and editor built with Rust and the system webview. It opens as fast as Notepad, renders with the refined Marco typography, and draws Mermaid diagrams right inside the preview — no installer, no Electron, no bloat.

Download Latest Release Explore Features

Windows · macOS · LinuxMermaid diagrams built inNo ElectronMIT · Free & open source

GlanceMD — README.md

GlanceMD light theme window with gradient headings, full-width layout, and outline sidebar

Marco typography · Light themeReal app window — gradient headings, full-width content, outline sidebar

MermaidDiagrams rendered offline, theme-aware

0Electron or Node runtime bundled

30+Languages with syntax highlighting

3Desktop platforms with native packages

Why GlanceMD

Light Where It Matters, Beautiful Where It Counts

Markdown tools usually make you choose: tiny viewers that render poorly, or gorgeous editors that take a minute to launch. GlanceMD refuses the trade-off.

⚡

Truly Lightweight

Rust plus the webview your OS already ships. No Electron, no Node, no bundler — just a compact native executable with every asset embedded.

🎨

Elegant by Default

The Marco typography theme comes built in: gradient headings, full-width content, zebra tables, and a comfortable reading measure. Beautiful out of the box.

🚀

Starts Instantly

A native window powered by WebView2, WebKit, or WebKitGTK opens as fast as Notepad and stays light on memory, file after file.

🛠️

Open & Free

MIT-licensed and developed in the open on GitHub. Inspect it, fork it, shape the roadmap — no accounts, no telemetry, no paywalls.

Elegant Rendering

The Marco Typography, Built In

Gradient headings, full-width layouts, and a theme for every hour

GlanceMD ships with the preview style of the Marco reader: left-aligned purple-to-pink gradient headings, content and tables that span the whole window, zebra rows with hover highlights, and calm code blocks with language labels. One click switches the entire app between light and dark.

Purple → pink gradient headings on every section
Full-width content and zebra-striped tables
Code blocks with language tags, tuned for light & dark
One-click light / dark theme toggle

GlanceMD v1.7.0 · MIT

GlanceMD dark theme rendering a Markdown document with gradient headings and outline sidebar

Live Rendering

Live Preview with Full GFM Support

Tables, task lists, footnotes, and 30+ highlighted languages

Reading and editing stay in sync. GlanceMD renders GitHub-Flavored Markdown through marked.js — tables, task lists, footnotes, strikethrough — while highlight.js colors over 30 languages. Press Ctrl+\ for split view and watch the preview follow every keystroke.

Full GFM: tables, task lists, footnotes
Split view with live sync (Ctrl+\)
30+ syntax-highlighted languages
Adjustable preview width — just drag the edge

GlanceMD v1.7.0 · MIT

Close-up of GlanceMD rendering GFM lists, bold text, and inline icons with a gradient section heading

Diagram Engine

Mermaid Diagrams, Rendered Inline

Flowcharts, sequence diagrams, and more — straight from fenced code blocks

Wrap a diagram in a ```mermaid code block and GlanceMD draws it in place: flowcharts, sequence diagrams, gantt charts, and the rest of the Mermaid family. The engine is embedded, so diagrams render fully offline; colors follow the app theme; and invalid syntax shows a parse error without touching the rest of the document.

```mermaid fences draw flowcharts, sequences, gantt & more
Embedded engine — diagrams render fully offline
Colors adapt to the light / dark theme
Invalid charts show a parse error, never a blank page
Copy the original Mermaid source from the chart corner

GlanceMD v1.7.0 · MIT

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  A[Markdown] --> B{Mermaid}
  B --> C[Diagram]
```

Renders offlineTheme-aware colorsOne-click source copy

Focused Workflow

A Keyboard-First Reading Workbench

Tabs, outline, find, and zoom — one shortcut away

Keep several documents open in tabs, jump through the auto-generated outline, find anything inside the document, and zoom to your eyes’ comfort. Drop any .md file onto the window to open it, and set GlanceMD as your system default Markdown viewer.

Multi-tab with an auto-hiding tab bar
Auto outline sidebar (Ctrl+Shift+O)
Find in document with match navigation (Ctrl+F)
Instant image preview: PNG, SVG, GIF, WebP and more
Drag & drop files, recent-files panel, file association

GlanceMD v1.7.0 · MIT

Toggle edit / previewCtrlE

Toggle split viewCtrl\

Find in documentCtrlF

Outline sidebarCtrlShiftO

New tabCtrlN

Close tabCtrlW

Next tabCtrlTab

Zoom inCtrl=

Native Core

Rust Core, System WebView, Zero Bloat

Every frontend asset compiled into one native binary

Windowing and file I/O run in Rust through tao + wry, and rendering is handled by the webview your OS already ships — WebView2 on Windows, WebKit on macOS, WebKitGTK on Linux. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are embedded at compile time via include_str!. Based on the open-source Peekdown project, with the Marco theme.

tao + wry: windowing and IPC in pure Rust
System webview — nothing heavy bundled
Assets embedded at compile time (include_str!)
Built on open-source Peekdown · Marco theme

GlanceMD v1.7.0 · MIT

Your Markdown.md files on your disk

Embedded UImarked.js + highlight.js, compiled in

System WebViewWebView2 / WebKit / WebKitGTK

Rust Coretao + wry — windows, files, IPC

Never bundledElectronNode.jsBundler

Get GlanceMD

One Click, One File, Ready to Run

Grab the latest release straight from GitHub — Windows ships as a single portable executable, while macOS and Linux use native packages. All downloads below come from the latest release.

Windows 10/11 · x64Portable — no install neededGlanceMD-windows-x64.exe≈ 4.2 MBDownload

macOS · Apple SiliconUnsigned DMGGlanceMD-macos-arm64-unsigned.dmg≈ 1.7 MBDownload

macOS · IntelUnsigned DMGGlanceMD-macos-x64-unsigned.dmg≈ 1.7 MBDownload

Linux · Debian / Ubuntuamd64 .deb packageGlanceMD_1.7.0_amd64.deb≈ 2.7 MBDownload

Linux · AppImageSelf-contained runtimeGlanceMD_1.7.0_x86_64.AppImage≈ 74 MBDownload

macOS packages are not yet signed or notarized. On first launch, allow the app under System Settings → Privacy & Security.

Browse all releases & checksums

Free & Open Source

Open by Design, Built in the Open

GlanceMD grows on GitHub, deeply developed from the open-source Peekdown project with the Marco typography theme. Inspect the code, report issues, and help shape the next release.

Open Source

MIT-Licensed & Transparent

Read the Rust core, the embedded UI, and the theme pipeline. Star the repo to follow each release.

GitHub repositoryRust + System WebViewMIT license

View Repository Feedback & Bugs

Report Issues & Requests

Found a rendering glitch on your platform, or need a feature for your workflow? Open an issue and drive the roadmap.

Bug reportsFeature requestsPlatform-specific tips

Browse Issues Code Contributions

Contribute Pull Requests

Improve the renderer, add theme options, extend keyboard control, or package GlanceMD for more platforms — PRs are welcome.

PRs welcomeTheme tuningPlatform packaging

Browse Pull Requests

Start Reading Markdown Beautifully

Feather-light. Elegant. Free.

Download the latest release, set GlanceMD as your default .md viewer, and give every Markdown file the reading experience it deserves.

Download the Latest Release Star on GitHub

Free & open source · MIT · Windows / macOS / Linux