Help

The launcher appears when no vault is open, and offers:

• Open an existing folder — any folder of Markdown files.
• Create a new vault — a fresh, empty folder.
• Start with the starter vault— a small set of linked notes that teach wikilinks, tags and daily notes by being read.
• Import from an existing vault— an Obsidian vault opens as-is. There’s no import step, because there’s nothing to convert.

Your last five vaults are remembered, and Skein reopens the most recent one on launch unless you turn that off in Settings.

A note is a .mdfile, and its title is the filename. There’s no separate display title to keep in sync. YAML frontmatter at the top of a note is preserved and shown as a Properties card rather than raw text.

Markdown markers are hidden while their meaning is shown: ## Heading reads as a heading, **bold** as bold, [[Note|alias]] as the alias, backticked code gets a tinted background.

Crucially this is driven by content, not by where your cursor is. The layout neverreflows as you move around — which is the failure that makes other editors’ live preview jumpy. If you’d rather see the raw syntax, turn off Show markdown syntax while editingin Settings → Editor.

Markers that carry meaning stay visible: #tags keep their hash, list dashes stay put.

Type / for headings, lists, callouts, dividers and more. Type [[ and pick from your note titles. Type # and existing tags are suggested.

Drag a file into the editor and it lands at the pointer, not at the end. Images are copied into your vault’s attachments folder and render inline as you write. Anything that isn’t an image becomes a link. The attachments folder name is yours to set in Settings.

Formatting, insert an image, insert an external link with a URL prompt, or turn the selected text into a wikilink without typing the brackets.

Skein autosaves. You can set the delay to immediate, half a second or two seconds in Settings → Editor, alongside spell-check-while-typing and text width (narrow, standard, wide or full).

Headings, bold, italic, code, callouts (info, tip, warning and error), dividers, lists and images. Wikilinks and tags are clickable; clicking a wikilink to a note that doesn’t exist yet creates it.

Reading mode uses the same centred measure as the editor, so toggling between them never shifts the text you’re looking at.

[[Note]], [[Note|alias]], [[Note#Heading]] and ![[embeds]]. Resolution is case-insensitive. If two notes share a title, Skein resolves to the nearest one by path and tells you the link is ambiguous rather than guessing silently.

The inspector (⌥⌘I) holds backlinks— every note linking here, each with its surrounding context — plus outgoing links, and unlinked mentions: notes that name this one without linking it. Right-click → Link To makes the connection without typing any syntax.

Hover any wikilink to preview the note it points at, without leaving the one you’re in.

Edit the title above the note body and Skein rewrites every [[link]]pointing at it across the vault. A banner tells you how many notes were touched and offers Undo. If you’ve already dismissed it, Edit → Undo Rename (⌃⌘Z) restores the exact previous bytes of every file it changed.

Parents are the hub notes and folder notes that lead here. Children are the notes this one points at. Siblings share its folder. Related share its tags and links.

Zones are inferred from your folders and your links, so there’s nothing to label by hand. Each zone is capped so the picture stays readable, and clicking any chip navigates to that note. What counts as a hub is adjustable in Settings → General → Graph.

⌘\ toggles the folder tree, which shows note counts and has a button for creating a new folder. Tabs follow the VS Code pattern: a single click opens a preview tab in italics that gets replaced as you browse, so clicking through ten notes leaves one tab behind. Edit it or double-click to make it permanent. Middle-click or × to close.

Two notes side by side. The second pane has its own header with a dropdown to choose what it shows — your open tabs first, then the rest of the vault — a button to swap the panes, and a close button. Open in Splitin the sidebar’s right-click menu opens a note on the right without disturbing what you’re reading on the left.

Type #tag inline, or right-click → Add Tagto write one into the note’s frontmatter. Both sources merge into one tag list. Nothing is stored in a hidden database.

Any note in your templates/folder is a template — the folder name is configurable. From the ribbon you can insert one into the current note or create a new note from one, with substitutions for date, time and title. Save This Note as a Templatecopies whatever you’re looking at into the folder.

⇧⌘Dopens today’s note, creating it if it doesn’t exist. Both the folder and the filename date format are configurable.

Fuzzy match on note titles. Type the letters you remember, in order, and jump.

SQLite FTS5 with BM25 ranking, boosted for titles and headings, so a note actually named for your query outranks one that merely mentions it. Results come with snippets showing the surrounding context.

The index updates incrementally as files change, and it’s entirely disposable — delete it and Skein rebuilds it from your files.

Every action in the app, one keystroke away.

Your notes are indexed system-wide, so they turn up in macOS Spotlight alongside everything else. Opening a result lands you on that note.

Skein snapshots a note on every save, outside your vault. Right-click a note → Version History to browse and restore. Restoring snapshots the current state first, so a restore is itself undoable. How many versions are kept, and for how long, is up to you in Settings.

If a file changed on disk while you were editing it — a sync client, another editor — Skein never overwrites. Your version is saved alongside as a conflict copy and both stay in the sidebar, so nothing is lost and you decide what to keep.

A file watcher picks up changes made by sync services or other apps. No relaunching, no manual refresh.

Right-click → Move to Trash, or ⌘⌫. It goes to the macOS Trash, not into a void, and Skein takes a version snapshot first.

The search index and version history sit in Application Support, never inside your vault, which stays nothing but notes. Reveal Data Folder in Settings takes you there.

A4 with real pagination: headings are never orphaned from the text beneath them, and images are never sliced across a page break.

One self-contained file. Styles are inline, images are embedded as data URIs, and it makes no external requests, so it renders the same offline as on. It’s dark-mode aware too.

The file verbatim. Never reformatted, never rewritten.

Skein answers to:

• skein://note/<title>
• skein://daily
• skein://search/<query>
• skein://settings
• skein://export/pdf | html | markdown

Export URLs write the open note to Downloads. Opening any skein:// URL reuses the window you already have rather than spawning a second one.

Three actions: Open Note, Create Note and Append to Daily Note.

Reopen the last vault on launch. Attachments folder name. Templates folder name. Daily notes folder and date format. Graph zone hints and hub threshold. Version history retention, by count and by age. Reveal data folder. There’s also a support card here, with buttons to donate or leave a review.

Spell check. Open notes in reading mode. Show markdown syntax while editing. Autosave delay. Text width — narrow, standard, wide or full. The theme follows your system appearance.

Version, support and review links, Verso and Nought, privacy and terms.

The features are simply present. There’s nothing to install, browse or configure first.

Files are files. Use iCloud, Dropbox, git or nothing at all — Skein doesn’t mind.

No database holds your note content. The Markdown files are the whole truth.

Two panes and tabs. It’s a place to think, not a tiling window manager.

It follows your Mac. That’s the entire appearance surface.

In the folder you chose, as ordinary .md files. Delete Skein and every note is still there, readable in any editor.

No. There’s no account and no sync service, and nothing leaves your Mac. Skein is also free, funded by donations rather than by anything it does with your notes.

Yes — point Skein at the same folder. It reads the same wikilinks, tags and frontmatter, and there’s no import step. Skein’s own index and version history are kept outside the vault, so the only things it ever writes into your folder are things you asked for: your notes, attachments you drag in, templates you save, and a conflict copy if something else edited a note behind your back.

Nothing bad. Skein rebuilds it from your files. Your knowledge is in the Markdown, not the index. Note that version history lives in the same place and isn’t reproducible from your vault, so keep that if you want the safety net.

macOS 14 or later, universal for Apple Silicon and Intel, around 9 MB. Signed and notarised, so it opens without warnings.

Email hello@teze.app. See also the privacy policy, terms, and how to support Skein.