spacebarA Syntax Highlight Alternative
Two free, open-source Quick Look extensions that highlight source code in Finder, with different aims
- Free, GPL-3.0
- About 180 formats
- Deep settings and power tools
- macOS 12 and later
- Free, MIT
- Code beside its folder
- Markdown, JSON, plists and zips too
- macOS 13 and later
Syntax Highlight (opens in a new tab), by sbarex, is a mature code previewer built on the Highlight library, with a long list of formats and a setting for nearly every detail. spacebar shows code beside its folder, with Markdown, JSON, plists and archives in the same pane. If Syntax Highlight does what you need, there is no need to switch.
At A Glance
| Feature | spacebar | Syntax Highlight |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Install | A notarized .dmg, or one Terminal command | Homebrew cask or a download; codesigned and notarized |
| Oldest macOS | 13 | 12; version 2.1.30 for macOS 10.15 and 11 |
| Highlighter | highlight.js, bundled | Highlight, by Andre Simon, with a choice of render engines |
| Formats | Common languages, scripts and config; others as plain text with line numbers | About 180 on its supported-formats list, by our count |
| Settings | A few, under Aa and in Settings | Color schemes, fonts, word wrap, line numbers, custom CSS, a theme editor, a data limit and per-format arguments |
| Power tools | None of these | Language Server support, git and Mercurial change marks, preprocessors, a command-line tool, hex dumps of binary files |
| Folder sidebar | Yes, with a filter | No |
| Editing | Code, config, text, JSON, CSV and Markdown, in place | No; a preview only |
| Beyond code | Markdown rendered with Mermaid and KaTeX, JSON as a tree, binary plists as XML, zip contents listed | Binary plists decompiled with plutil; for Markdown, its developer points to QLMarkdown |
Checked against spacebar 0.5.0 and Syntax Highlight 2.1.32, its README and its Homebrew cask, on 2 October 2026. Spot a mistake? Tell us on X (opens in a new tab).
Which To Pick
Pick Syntax Highlight If
- You need a language spacebar shows as plain text; its list is longer
- You want Language Server hovers and colors, or changed lines marked
- You tune fonts, wrapping, CSS, color schemes or a preprocessor
- You convert files to highlighted HTML from the command line
- You’re on macOS 12 or earlier
Pick spacebar If
- You read a file beside its folder, moving with a click or the arrow keys
- You fix a typo in a script or a config file without an editor
- You want one previewer for code, Markdown, JSON, plists and zips
- You want nothing to set up
More: syntax highlighting in Quick Look, and how it sits beside Peek, QLMarkdown and Apple’s Quick Look: compare. For files with no extension, see a QLStephen alternative; for another free previewer, Glance and spacebar.
Running Both
Quick Look uses one previewer per file type, and where both claim a type, macOS picks one. The switch is per extension, not per type: Syntax Highlight’s README says macOS doesn’t allow turning its formats on and off one by one. So keep both on, with Syntax Highlight covering the formats spacebar doesn’t claim and one of them winning the rest, or turn one off in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Quick Look (on macOS 13 and 14, System Settings › Privacy & Security › Extensions › Quick Look).
Questions
Is Syntax Highlight still maintained?
Yes. Version 2.1.32 came out on 16 September 2026, and it installs with Homebrew as the syntax-highlight cask.
Does either one run my scripts?
spacebar never runs a script it shows; it draws the source as text. Syntax Highlight colors the file with the Highlight library. It runs a preprocessor only if you set one up, apart from the decompilers it uses on its own for AppleScript, property lists and Java classes.
Do I need to uninstall Syntax Highlight to try spacebar?
No. Install spacebar, then turn Syntax Highlight’s extension off in System Settings while you try it. Turning it back on undoes the switch.
Install It
Or paste this in Terminal
curl -fsSL https://spacebar.patebryant.com/install.sh | sh
The script downloads the latest notarized release from GitHub, checks its SHA-256 and installs to ~/Applications, no sudo. Read the script.