File Browser
Every preview has a sidebar of its folder, folders first
Press Space Markdown, Fully Rendered
Quick Look for .md files, no app to open
curl -fsSL https://spacebar.patebryant.com/install.sh | sh
Free and open source · macOS 13+ · Apple silicon & Intel
Try It Here
The app’s own preview, in your browser
Click a file, press Space · ↑ ↓ to move · esc to close Tap a file to preview it Click a paragraph to edit it
Pick a theme
All In Quick Look
Resizable Sidebar
Drag its edge or hide it; every preview remembers
Any File Type
Click any file in the sidebar and it shows in the panel
- Images
- Code
- JSON
- CSV
- Info card
View Folders
Turn it on, then press Space on a folder, Obsidian vaults too
- [[wikilinks]]
- ![[embeds]]
- > [!callouts]
- #tags
Mermaid, Math, Code
Diagrams, KaTeX and 36 languages, all offline
- ```mermaid
- $$ math $$
- ts · py · rust · go · swift
- Tables
- Relative images
Live Updates
The file changes, the panel redraws, your place stays
Six Themes, Light & Dark
Apple, GitHub, Paper, Solarized, Nord, High Contrast
Orbit 2.0
Workers hold a lease, not a lock. Run orbit up.
Customize
Size, theme, width and font from Aa, or your own CSS
15 pt
Workers hold a lease, not a lock, so a job runs once even when a worker stops mid-task.
Edit In Preview
Click a paragraph, type, and it saves
Workers hold a lease, not a lock
Click the text to editTap the text to edit
Press Enter to edit the Markdown. Enter, Escape or leaving the text saves it.
Checkboxes Save
Tick a task and it’s written to the file
Front Matter & Contents
Front matter as a table, a table of contents and a word count
| title | Orbit 2.0 release notes |
|---|---|
| tags | releasequeue |
Orbit 2.0
Orbit is a small job queue for Postgres. Version 2.0 moves workers from locks to leases, so a stopped worker never holds a job for good.
Highlights
Leases expire on their own. Retries back off exponentially, and jobs that keep failing land in a dead-letter queue.
Upgrading
Run the migration, then restart workers one at a time. Old and new workers can share a queue during the rollout.
Breaking changes
lock_timeout is now lease_ttl, in seconds.
Feels Built In
Measured in Quick Look on our test Mac
- Click to caret
- 2 ms
- Keystroke to painted
- 3–5 ms
- Keystroke to saved
- 13–17 ms
Native Settings
Or edit settings.json by hand
Checks Quick Look uses spacebar and finds QLMarkdown
Themes, fonts, size, width, minimal chrome and custom.css
The file browser, hidden files and folder previews
Editing and checkboxes, on or off
Math, Mermaid, raw HTML and remote images
Set Up In A Minute
No account, no sudo. Installs to ~/Applications
Paste In Terminal
~20 sThe install command downloads the release, checks its SHA-256 and turns it on
Press Space
1 keyOn any .md file in Finder
Free Forever
MIT licensed, source on GitHub (opens in a new tab)
spacebar 0.1.2
macOS 13+ · Apple silicon & Intel
Get Updates
One email for big releases. No spam.
Private By Default
On Your Mac
No analytics or account. Online only for remote images, off by default, and links you open
Sandboxed
Documents are sanitised and can’t run scripts
This Website
No cookies. Your email if you give it. Anonymous, city-level preview stats kept 24 hours for our own use
FAQ
More questions? Ask on X (opens in a new tab)
How do I preview Markdown in Finder?
Install spacebar, select a .md file and press Space. macOS has no Markdown previewer of its own, so Quick Look shows plain text. The Quick Look guide has the details.
Can it replace QLMarkdown?
Yes. Turn QLMarkdown off, or macOS may keep using it; spacebar’s General settings find it and help. Here’s how the two compare.
Does it render Mermaid and math?
Yes, offline. Try architecture.md and math.md in the demo, or read previewing Mermaid on a Mac.
What file types does it preview?
Markdown, and from the sidebar images, PDFs, code, JSON, CSV and text. Anything else gets an info card with Open with or Reveal in Finder.
Does it work with Obsidian?
Yes. Vaults show [[wikilinks]], ![[embeds]], callouts and tags, with .obsidian hidden. Try vault-demo in the demo, or see Obsidian vaults in Finder.
Can I edit Markdown in Quick Look?
Yes. Click a paragraph and type, or tick a task, and it saves to the file.
Does the preview update when the file changes?
Yes. It redraws as soon as the file changes on disk and keeps your place.
Can I watch a CLAUDE.md or plan as an agent writes it?
Yes. Leave the preview open and it redraws each time the agent saves. See reading Claude Code’s Markdown.
Is it safe to open a file I downloaded?
Yes. Documents are sanitised and can’t run scripts, and remote images are off by default.
Why a Terminal command instead of a download?
spacebar isn’t notarized: there’s no Apple Developer ID behind it yet, and files fetched with curl aren’t quarantined, so Gatekeeper doesn’t stop it. That means you’re trusting this project’s build, not Apple’s check, so read the install script first.
Does spacebar collect any data?
No. The app has no analytics or tracking; the privacy policy lists what this site keeps.
How much does it cost?
Nothing. It’s free and open source under MIT, on GitHub (opens in a new tab).
How do I uninstall it?
Run curl -fsSL https://spacebar.patebryant.com/uninstall.sh | sh. Add -s -- --purge after sh to delete your settings too.
Which Macs does it support?
macOS 13 Ventura or later, on Apple silicon or Intel.
Press Space
curl -fsSL https://spacebar.patebryant.com/install.sh | sh