A Markdown reader for macOS.
Markdown, read like print.
A Markdown reader for Mac: your own notes, an Obsidian vault, the reports your agents write. Open a file and it is already a page — nothing to set up, nothing to sync.
Free to try for 7 days. $9.99 once to keep. macOS 26 or later.
Free to try for 7 days when it ships. $9.99 once to keep. macOS 26 or later.
No vault, no setup, no editor waiting to change a word.
Not on the Mac App Store yet. The note goes out the day it is.
Set like a book — 72 characters to the line
Seventy-two characters to the line, measured in the face you are actually reading, not guessed from an em. Headings, numerals and callout icons hang into the gutter so the prose keeps one unbroken left edge all the way down.
- Seventy-two characters to the line
- Numerals hang in the gutter
- Two rules, no zebra
- The callout loses its box
Reads your Obsidian vault without opening Obsidian
A note from a vault is not plain Markdown, and most readers show you the syntax
instead of the note. Margin reads the syntax a vault note is actually written in. No
vault to point at, no plugin to install: open one .md
file and read it.
-
Callouts
> [!note]and the rest keep their icon and their title. The icon hangs in the margin instead of drawing a box. -
Wikilinks
[[Another note]]and[[note|alias]]read as links, showing the alias you gave them, or the note and the heading you pointed at. - YAML properties Frontmatter opens as a properties block at the head of the note — title, tags, dates, status — and collapses when you want the prose alone.
-
Embeds
![[diagram.png]]resolves against the note’s own folder. Margin asks once for that folder and never for the rest of the vault. -
Tags
#designand#margin/readerset as tags, in the text, not as chrome. - Tables Ruled above and below the header, with alignment honoured and no zebra stripes.
- Task lists Checked and unchecked boxes as they stand in the file. Reading one never ticks one.
- Code Fenced blocks in more than a hundred languages, highlighted, and inline code set in the same family as the prose.
A vault note as Margin reads it: the properties block at the head, its tags, and the wikilinks under “related”.
The outline, find and text size live in the margin
There is no sidebar and no second surface. The outline hangs off the printed rule as marginalia, and find and text settings come over the page and leave again.
The outline hangs off the printed rule as marginalia. A vermilion mark keeps your place in it.
Find counts the matches and marks them in vermilion. The one you are on is darker than the rest.
One size and three faces. That is the whole of what you set to read with.
It reloads without losing your place.
Claude Code, Codex and Cursor write Markdown as they work; Margin re-renders it live. Point it at a file an agent is still writing and the page re-renders as the file changes, holds your scroll position, and puts a mark in the margin to say it moved.
Quick Look: press Space in Finder
Select a .md file in Finder and press Space. Margin
installs a Quick Look extension with the app, so the preview is the same typeset page
the app shows, not raw syntax and not a wall of monospace. Press Space again and it is
gone. Nothing is opened, and nothing is changed.
Set Margin as the default app for .md and a double-click
opens the file in a real document window, with tabs, full screen, and a proxy icon in
the title bar.
The Quick Look panel, straight from Finder. The same paper, the same measure, no window to close afterwards.
Paper #1A1815. Ink #D7D1C4. The same page, under a different lamp.
After dark, a warm room.
Dark mode is its own paper and its own ink, not the light page inverted, so the whites never glare and the vermilion still reads as a mark.
The privacy page says the same in longer words.
Nothing leaves your Mac — no account, no sync, no analytics
- No account, no sync, no analytics. There is nothing to sign into and nothing for Altai to receive. The App Store handles the trial and the unlock; nothing about a document is part of it.
- Your files stay where they are. Margin reads them in place. It never moves, copies or rewrites a document.
- Sandboxed, and it asks. It reads the file you open. A note whose images sit in a sibling folder asks once for that folder, and the grant can be withdrawn in Settings.
Anything else goes to Margin support, and a real reply comes back.
Questions
Can Margin open Obsidian notes?
Yes. Point it at any .md file inside a vault and it
renders callouts, wikilinks, YAML properties, embeds and tags the way Obsidian
does. There is no vault to configure and no plugin to install, and Obsidian does
not have to be running — or installed.
Does it edit or change my files?
No. Margin is read-only by intent: there is no way to type into a document, and the app never moves, copies or rewrites a file. It reads the file you open, in place, and leaves it exactly as it found it.
Why a reader and not an editor?
Because most of the time with a note is spent reading it. An editor has to show you the syntax, keep a cursor, and guard against losing work; a reader owes you only the page. Write in whatever editor you already like — Obsidian, VS Code, an agent — and read here.
Can it export to PDF?
Yes. Print, or export to PDF from the print sheet, with the same typography you read on screen. Page setup honours your margins, headers and footers.
Does it work offline?
Reading is entirely offline: no account, no sync, no analytics, and no document ever leaves the Mac. The App Store handles the seven-day trial and the one-time unlock, which is the only thing that needs a network at all.
What does it cost?
Free to try for 7 days, then $9.99 once to keep it — a single in-app purchase, not a subscription. Every 1.x update is included. See Margin on the Mac App Store. Margin is not on the Mac App Store yet — get the note when it ships.
A Mac app from Altai Ventures, a one-person studio.
One price
$9.99 once, after a free seven-day trial
- Free to try for 7 days. The whole app, not a sample.
- Free to try for 7 days when it ships. The whole app, not a sample.
- $9.99 once to keep it. One in-app purchase, no subscription.
- Every 1.x update, included.
- macOS 26 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel.
- On the Mac App Store.
- Coming to the Mac App Store.
The download is free and the trial runs for seven days with nothing held back. Keeping it is a single $9.99 purchase inside the app. Reading a document is offline either way.
The download will be free and the trial will run for seven days with nothing held back. Keeping it will be a single $9.99 purchase inside the app. Reading a document is offline either way.