Markdown Quick Look for macOS
Press Space on a Markdown file in Finder and read the document the way you wrote it: headings, tables, code, diagrams, and math. Glance is the Quick Look extension that draws all of it on your Mac, with no browser engine and no CDN.
Short answer
macOS has no Markdown renderer for Quick Look, so pressing Space on a .md file shows raw text until an app adds one. With Glance, which is free for reading and previews:
- Download Glance from glance.md and drag it into Applications.
- Open it once, so macOS registers its Quick Look extension.
- Select any .md file in Finder and press Space. Headings, tables, code, Mermaid diagrams and LaTeX math render on your Mac.
Why macOS shows you raw Markdown
Quick Look previews a file when you select it in Finder and press Space. Apple ships renderers for images, PDFs, video, and a handful of text formats, and has never shipped one for Markdown. A .md file conforms to plain text, so the plain-text previewer claims it and hands you the source: literal # characters, raw link syntax, tables collapsed into pipes.
Quick Look takes extensions, though. An app can ship a preview extension that macOS loads for specific file types. Glance is that extension, wrapped in a 15.0 MB app.
What Glance renders
The preview is the document, not a stripped-down approximation of it:
- Headings, lists, task list checkboxes, blockquotes, callouts, and tables in real typography
- Fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting that recolors for light and dark
- Inline and linked images, including siblings like
./images/diagram.png - Mermaid diagrams, laid out and drawn as the file opens
- LaTeX math, inline and display, typeset with no browser involved
- JSON, YAML, and CSV files, with JSON pretty-printed and colored
Add Markdown previews to Finder
Free to read, Pro to edit · v0.3.0 · 15.0 MB · macOS 14+
How to install
Download the disk image, drag Glance into Applications, and open it once so macOS registers the Quick Look extension. Select any .md file in Finder and press Space. For the walkthrough with screenshots and the fixes for a preview that refuses to appear, see how to preview Markdown files in Finder.
Registration is the part this category gets wrong. Rival extensions leave you running pluginkit and qlmanage in Terminal when macOS loses track of them. Glance checks its own registration on every launch, and Settings shows the Quick Look status with a button that re-registers the extension for you. If previews still show raw text, see Markdown Quick Look not working.
Rendered on your Mac, not in a browser
Most Markdown previewers put a web view on screen and hand it HTML. Glance parses the document and draws it with Core Text and Core Graphics, and renders Mermaid and LaTeX to images before the first frame appears. Nothing loads from a CDN, so math and diagrams still render on a plane. The only thing a preview fetches is an image the document itself links on the web.
The app is 15.0 MB, signed and notarized by Apple, and collects nothing about you. Details on the privacy page.
Then fix what you are reading
Quick Look stops at reading, which is where every other Markdown previewer on the Mac also stops. Press Return in the preview and the file opens in Glance, where the rendered page accepts typing. Click the sentence that is wrong and retype it. Select text for a formatting toolbar, edit a table cell and Tab to the next, or click a Mermaid diagram to rewrite its source and press ⌘↩ to redraw it. Glance writes plain Markdown back to disk.
The window has the rest of what reading a file needs: ⌘F searches with every match highlighted, ⌘T opens the next document in a tab, and ⌘\ shows the raw Markdown in a pane beside the rendered page, scrolling in step with it and editable from either side.
Reading stays free. Editing is Glance Pro, free for 14 days, then $9.99 once for up to three Macs.
Beyond the preview
⌘Fsearches the open document with every match highlighted,⌘Gsteps through them⌘Pprints and⇧⌘Eexports a PDF that matches the page, breaking between lines and table rows instead of through them- Pinch to zoom around your pointer, so a dense diagram gets bigger where you are looking
- Updates arrive in the background and install when you next open the app
Related reading
Replacing an older plugin? See the QLMarkdown comparison. Coming from a paid preview app? Compare against Marked. Reviewing files your coding agent wrote? See AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md.
FAQ
No. Pressing Space on a .md file shows the raw source, with literal hash marks and unstyled code fences. A .md file conforms to plain text, so the plain-text previewer claims it. Apple has never shipped a Markdown renderer for Quick Look, which is why you need an extension like Glance.
Download Glance, drag it into your Applications folder, and open it once. macOS registers the bundled Quick Look extension on first launch. From then on, select any .md file and press Space for a rendered preview.
Any .md or .markdown file, including README.md, AGENTS.md, and CLAUDE.md. Tables, fenced code with syntax highlighting, images, Mermaid diagrams, and LaTeX math all render. Glance also previews JSON, YAML, and CSV.
Not to render. Glance draws math, diagrams, and code on your Mac with no browser engine and no CDN, so a document with no web images sends nothing anywhere. The one exception is an image the document links on the web: Glance downloads it from that address, as a browser would, while images stored next to the file load from disk. Some Markdown Quick Look extensions load their math or diagram renderer from a CDN instead of shipping it.
Quick Look previews are read-only, the way macOS intends. Press Return and the file opens in Glance, where you click any line on the rendered page and type, with changes saved back as plain Markdown. Editing is Glance Pro, free for 14 days and $9.99 once after that.
Yes. Reading is free forever, with no account and no trial timer. Glance is signed and notarized by Apple and works offline.
macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on an Apple Silicon Mac. There's no Intel build.
Ready to glance?
Free to read, Pro to edit · v0.3.0 · 15.0 MB · macOS 14+