One job
Open Markdown files, render them, and let you read, search, select, and copy the text.
Windows · macOS · Ubuntu · open source · read-only
Double-click Markdown.
Read it.
No editor chrome. No project index. No WebView. FastMarkdownViewer opens Markdown files as clean rendered documents.
New in v0.2.8: Adjustable reading width and text size, Monokai defaults, progressive diagrams and highlighting, and crisp platform icons.
Windows builds are unsigned; Mac apps are ad-hoc signed and unnotarized. See the installation and verification instructions.
See it in 20 seconds
Open. Find. Read.
Open a Markdown file, find the line you need, and read code, math, and diagrams.
Edited captures of the real v0.2.2 renderer. Large captions; no audio needed.
Download MP4 · Get FastMarkdownViewer
Read the 20-second transcript
- 0–5 seconds — Open a file. Start reading. A Markdown document appears with headings, an outline, a table, code, and a checklist.
- 5–10 seconds — Find the line you need. Searching for “release” highlights three matches in the document.
- 10–16 seconds — Code. Math. Diagrams. A technical guide shows highlighted Rust code, a rendered equation, and a Mermaid flowchart.
- 16–20 seconds — Try FastMarkdownViewer. Free, open source, and no account required. Available for Windows, macOS, and Ubuntu; see installation instructions for requirements.
Fast by design
Lazy code highlighting and asynchronous math and image work keep expensive extras away from the first document frame.
Quiet software
No accounts, analytics, update pings, or history database. Preferences and the last reading session are saved locally on normal exit.
Network behavior
Your document stays yours.
Local documents are not uploaded. FastMarkdownViewer has no telemetry or update checker and does not execute HTML.
Visible remote images load automatically by default. Turn this off in Settings to load images individually. Image caches stay in memory and worker concurrency is bounded. That request exposes your IP to the image host, but sends no cookies, credentials, or referrer. Responses, redirects, formats, and decoded dimensions are bounded.
Read the complete privacy and network policy →Measured, not marketed
Performance claims wait for repeatable evidence.
The benchmark fixtures and harness are public. Until the 30-launch protocol is complete, the project makes no absolute startup-time claim.
Inspect the benchmark materials →Verify a download
Trust the build trail.
- Download togetherGet your platform package and
SHA256SUMS.txtfrom the same canonical GitHub Release. - Compare SHA-256
Get-FileHash .\FastMarkdownViewer-0.2.8-windows-x86_64.exe -Algorithm SHA256 - Verify provenance
gh attestation verify .\FastMarkdownViewer-0.2.8-windows-x86_64.exe --repo Quetzalcohuatl/fastmarkdownviewer
Checksums and attestations establish origin and unchanged bytes. They do not suppress Windows SmartScreen or macOS downloaded-app security checks.
After v0.1
Stability first. Reach second.
Windows x64, macOS 15+ for Apple Silicon and Intel, and Ubuntu 24.04 x64 are supported. Future work can include code signing, Windows ARM64, high-contrast design, and package-manager listings. Tabs, wildcard search, a heading outline, and lazy syntax highlighting are included. Offline Mermaid rendering is included with resource limits and source fallback; editing and file watching remain outside this release.