From the makers of Skein
The app you want when you double-click a Markdown file
One file, one window, and a page worth looking at. Lede is free, it keeps nothing of yours, and it never touches a byte you did not type.
Free · v1.0.0 · 5.4 MB· macOS 14 or later
What it is for
One Markdown file at a time: a draft, a README, a set of notes somebody sent you. Lede opens it, shows it properly, and lets you write in it without the syntax shouting at you.
Most free Markdown editors show you your text and its punctuation at the same time, in one monospaced column. Lede hides the markers and shows the meaning, and it does it without the line moving under your cursor, which is the part the apps that try it get wrong.
It is free. Not free with an upgrade, not free for now: there is nothing to buy, no account to make and no subscription.
Four pages, not four skins
The page colour is the window, edge to edge: no panel, no strip of a different grey behind the toolbar. Each of the four carries its own ink and its own accent, measured against that page rather than borrowed from the one next to it.
Read it, or see what is really there
Read renders the document: tables are tables, callouts are panels, and a completed task is struck through. Source shows the file exactly as a text editor would, monospaced, uncoloured, with line numbers. The same measure runs through all three views, so switching never moves a line.
What it does
The syntax disappears
A heading reads as a heading and bold reads as bold, while the file underneath stays exactly what you typed. Lede hides the markers by what the line says, not by where your cursor is, so the text never reflows as you move through it.
Write, Read, Source
Three views on one measure. Write has a caret, Read renders the document properly with tables and callouts, and Source shows the file the way a text editor would, monospaced and with line numbers. Switching between them never moves a line.
A slash menu that teaches itself out of a job
Type / and pick a heading, a list, a table, a callout. It shows you the Markdown it is about to write, so after a few uses you type the syntax yourself and stop opening the menu.
Four page colours
Paper, White, Grey and Black, chosen from the status bar and applied to the whole window rather than to a panel inside it. Warm for a lamp at night, true black for an OLED display.
Type size and line length
Seven type sizes, and a line length in characters rather than pixels, so a bigger size widens the measure instead of squeezing the words. Both live in the same small panel as the colours. There is no Settings window.
Find, and rename in place
Command-F opens a find bar over the page and closes with the same keystroke. Click the file name in the title bar to rename the file, which is one field and one commit rather than a dialog.
Nothing in the way
The chrome fades while you type and comes back when you reach for the mouse. It keeps its space while it fades, so not one line of your text moves.
It gives your file back unchanged
Open and save, twice over, and the bytes are identical. Smart quotes and dashes are off and cannot be turned on, because rewriting your punctuation as you type is not a feature. All of it is held in place by a test suite rather than by good intentions.
Markdown, properly
647 of 650 CommonMark examples and 666 of 672 GitHub Flavored Markdown examples, measured against the specifications' own test suites. Tables, footnotes, task lists, nested lists, code fences with highlighting.
Native, and small
Written in AppKit for the Mac. No Electron, no browser engine hidden inside, no JavaScript runtime. The whole download is 5.4 MB, universal, and it opens immediately.
Your file stays your file
Lede edits the Markdown file you opened, where you keep it. No library, no import, no database, and nothing copied anywhere else. Close Lede and every one of your files opens in whatever you used before.
If the file changes on disk while you have it open, Lede tells you and lets you choose. If it is locked, you get a way to unlock it rather than a beep.
There is no account, no server and no telemetry. Nothing you write leaves your Mac.
If you want more than one file
Then you want Skein, which is also free. Lede is one file in one window on purpose: no sidebar, no folder tree, no links between notes, no search across a vault. Skein has all of that, over a folder of the same plain Markdown files, and the two share an editor, so nothing looks or behaves differently when you move up.
And if what you actually need is a document to send somebody, with page layout and a Word file at the end of it, that is Verso.
Free · v1.0.0 · 5.4 MB· macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon and Intel
Signed and notarised by Apple. Made by the people who make Skein. One developer, who answers email.