MacDown 3000 is a free Markdown editor for macOS, available under the MIT License. It continues the legacy started by Chen Luo's Mou and carried forward by Tzu-ping Chung's MacDown.
Visit the project website for more information, or download from the releases page.
In 2025, there's still a need for a modern, lightweight Markdown editor for macOS with live preview capabilities. MacDown 3000 is essentially MacDown Continued. The focus is on keeping MacDown up to date with modern Markdown best practices and maintaining compatibility with current library dependencies.
MacDown 3000 supports macOS 11.0 (Big Sur) and later on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
This project honors the original intentions and contributions of both Mou and MacDown while ensuring that this valuable tool remains available and actively maintained for today's Mac users.
Version 3000.0.0-beta.0 - Available Now
Download the latest release from the GitHub Releases page, unzip, and drag the app to your Applications folder.
- macOS 11.0 (Big Sur) or later
- Universal binary supporting both:
- Apple Silicon (M-series processors)
- Intel x86_64 processors
MacDown 3000 is not signed with a paid Apple developer certificate. macOS will display an "unidentified developer" warning. To open the app:
- Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security
- Find the blocked app message and click "Open Anyway"
- Alternatively, right-click the app and choose "Open" the first time you launch it
MacDown 3000 uses Hoedown to convert Markdown to HTML with live preview as you type. It supports:
- Fenced code blocks with language identifiers
- GitHub Flavored Markdown including tables, strikethrough (enabled by default), and autolinks
- Task lists for GFM-style checkboxes
- Customizable rendering options in Preferences
Code blocks get syntax highlighting via Prism, supporting numerous programming and markup languages.
-
Math notation using TeX-like syntax (
$$...$$ , [...], (...), and optional$...$ blocks) - Jekyll front-matter for static site generators
- Export to HTML or PDF with customizable styling
- Auto-completion: Automatic bracket and quote pairing, list continuation, and formatting shortcuts (customizable or disable)
- Universal binary: Built natively for both Apple Silicon (M-series) and Intel Macs
- Modern Markdown: Supports CommonMark and GitHub Flavored Markdown
If you wish to build MacDown 3000 yourself, you will need the following components/tools:
- macOS SDK (11.0 or later)
- Git
- Bundler
Note: Old versions of CocoaPods are not supported. Please use Bundler to execute CocoaPods, or make sure your CocoaPods is later than shown in
Gemfile.lock.
Note: The Command Line Tools (CLT) should be unnecessary. If you failed to compile without it, please install CLT with
xcode-select --installand report back.
An appropriate SDK should be bundled with recent versions of Xcode.
After cloning the repository, run the following commands inside the repository root (directory containing this README.md file):
git submodule update --init
bundle install
bundle exec pod install
make -C Dependency/peg-markdown-highlight
and open MacDown 3000.xcworkspace in Xcode. The first command initialises the dependency submodule(s) used in MacDown 3000; the second one installs dependencies managed by CocoaPods.
Refer to the official guides of Git and CocoaPods if you need more instructions. If you run into build issues later on, try running the following commands to update dependencies:
git submodule update
bundle exec pod install
MacDown 3000 is released under the terms of MIT License. You may find the content of the license here, or inside the LICENSE directory.
You may find full text of licenses about third-party components in the LICENSE directory, or the About MacDown 3000 panel in the application.
The following editor themes and CSS files are extracted from Mou, courtesy of Chen Luo:
- Mou Fresh Air
- Mou Fresh Air+
- Mou Night
- Mou Night+
- Mou Paper
- Mou Paper+
- Tomorrow
- Tomorrow Blue
- Tomorrow+
- Writer
- Writer+
- Clearness
- Clearness Dark
- GitHub
- GitHub2
MacDown 3000 is Free Software under the MIT License. Contributions are welcome!
Please file an issue on GitHub for bug reports, feature requests, or questions. Please search first to make sure no-one has reported the same issue already before opening one yourself.
MacDown 3000 depends on other open source projects, such as Hoedown for Markdown-to-HTML rendering, Prism for syntax highlighting (in code blocks), and PEG Markdown Highlight for editor highlighting. If you find problems when using those particular features, you can also consider reporting them directly to upstream projects as well as to MacDown 3000's issue tracker.
Donations help cover the cost of the Apple developer license ($99/year). Any proceeds beyond our maintenance costs will be donated to the Signal Foundation.