A native macOS markdown viewer for people who actually read markdown.
Reader-first. Native rendering. No Electron. No web views for text. Just your documents, rendered beautifully.
Every markdown app wants to be an IDE. VoidReader wants to be a reader.
Polite nod to the ancestors:
- Typora - Great, but reader mode is an afterthought
- Obsidian - Vault-based, plugin ecosystem, more than you need
- MacDown - Split pane editor from 2014
- VS Code - You opened a text editor to read a document?
VoidReader opens markdown files and shows them to you. That's it. That's the app.
- Native text rendering - AttributedString, not HTML. Scrolls like butter.
- Mermaid diagrams - Flowcharts, sequence diagrams, rendered inline
- LaTeX math - KaTeX for
$$blocks, styled inline for$...$ - Syntax-highlighted code - With one-click copy
- Tables, task lists, images - Full GFM support
- Outline sidebar - Jump to any heading
- Print & PDF export - Paginated output with images and diagrams
- Edit mode - Toggle with Cmd+E
- Live syntax highlighting - AST-based, not regex
- Markdown linter - 8 rules to keep your docs clean
- Format on save - Auto-normalize list markers, whitespace, emphasis
- Distraction-free mode - Just you and your words
- External change detection - Reloads when files change on disk
- System theme - Native macOS semantic colors
- Catppuccin - Mocha (dark) / Latte (light) built-in
- Editor-only theming - Keep reader native, theme just the editor
- Custom themes - Drop JSON in
~/Library/Application Support/VoidReader/Themes/ - See THEMING.md for the full guide
- Signed & notarized - No Gatekeeper warnings
- Universal binary - Native on Intel and Apple Silicon
- Lightweight - ~15MB, launches instantly
brew install --cask lazypower/tap/voidreaderGrab the latest DMG from Releases.
Double-click. Drag to Applications. Done.
# Install dependencies
brew install xcodegen swiftlint swiftformat
# Clone and build
git clone https://github.com/lazypower/void-reader.git
cd void-reader
make setup
make build
# Or run directly
make run# Open a file
open -a VoidReader document.md
# Or just double-click any .md file after setting VoidReader as default| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Toggle Edit Mode | Cmd + E |
| Toggle Outline | Cmd + Shift + O |
| Find | Cmd + F |
| Find & Replace | Cmd + H |
| Format Document | Cmd + Shift + I |
| Distraction-Free | Cmd + Shift + F |
| Cmd + P | |
| Increase Font | Cmd + + |
| Decrease Font | Cmd + - |
| Reset Font | Cmd + 0 |
VoidReader uses XcodeGen for project management. The project.yml is the source of truth.
make help # See all commands
make project # Regenerate .xcodeproj from project.yml
make build # Build (Debug)
make run # Build and run
make test # Run tests
make release # Build (Release)
make dmg # Build unsigned DMG
make dmg-signed # Build signed & notarized DMG (requires Apple Developer ID)Sources/VoidReaderCore/ # Swift Package - parser, renderer, theming
App/ # SwiftUI app shell - views, resources
QuickLookExtension/ # Quick Look preview support
project.yml # XcodeGen config
- Core logic goes in
Sources/VoidReaderCore/ - Views go in
App/Views/ - Run
make projectafter adding files - Specs live in
openspec/if you're into that
- Swift 5.9+ / SwiftUI / macOS 14+
- swift-markdown - Apple's markdown parser
- Highlightr - Syntax highlighting
- Mermaid.js - Diagram rendering (bundled, no Node)
- KaTeX - Math rendering (bundled)
MIT. Do what you want.
Built by someone who just wanted to read markdown without suffering.
Document icon designed by Fiona.
VoidReader: Because sometimes you just want to read the damn file.