Browse a whole folder of Markdown files on Mac

MD Flow is a native Mac app that opens a folder of .md files and gives you what most Markdown tools don't: a file tree on one side, the rendered document on the other, and no step in between. Click a file, read it, click the next one. Nothing is imported, nothing is indexed, and nothing about your folder changes.

If you have ever wanted a Finder for Markdown — somewhere to see all the files in a folder and move between them without opening each one individually — that is the whole idea. It's free on the App Store for Mac, iPhone and iPad, with a one-time $7.99 Pro unlock and no subscription.

#The problem with the usual options

Most Markdown apps are built for the person writing the file. That assumption shapes everything about them, and it is the wrong assumption when you have thirty documents and you need to read four of them.

• Quick Look previews one file, as plain text, with the # and * still in it.
• VS Code shows the folder, but buries your documents among source files and gives you an editor pane you didn't ask for. It's a lot of application for reading a README.
• Marked renders beautifully, but previews one document at a time — there is no folder to move around in.
• Obsidian has the navigation, and charges for it in overhead: a vault, an import decision, a plugin ecosystem, and a concept of your notes that you have to adopt before you can read one.

None of those are bad tools. They are just built around a different verb.

#What browsing actually looks like

Connect a folder — a repo, a documentation tree, an iCloud folder, an Obsidian vault, the directory your AI assistant writes into. MD Flow shows it as a folder tree next to a live preview:

• Click to read. Selecting a file renders it immediately. No open, no close, no tab.
• Expand and collapse inline, or drill into a folder to focus on just its contents.
• Filter to Markdown, or show everything — it also previews HTML, plain text, CSV and RTF.
• Recent files stay one click away, so the document you keep returning to doesn't have to be found again.
• Table of contents for long documents, and find-in-document for the paragraph you half remember.
• Search by file name for free; with Pro, search inside every connected folder and get the matching line with its number.

Connect more than one folder and they sit side by side in the same tree. Pro removes the limit on how many.

#Everything in the folder renders

A folder of real documents is never just paragraphs. MD Flow renders what is actually in them:

• Mermaid diagrams inline — flowcharts, sequence diagrams, Gantt charts
• KaTeX math, inline and display
• Callout blocks (> [!note], > [!warning], …) in Obsidian style, with their colours
• YAML frontmatter as a tidy metadata header instead of a wall of dashes
• Syntax-highlighted code, tables, and task lists

#It reads. It doesn't rearrange.

MD Flow never modifies, moves, indexes or uploads what it reads. There is no database, no import, no second copy of your files, and no background indexer running down your battery. Disconnect a folder and nothing about it has changed.

That matters more than it sounds, because a folder you browse is usually a folder something else writes to — your editor, your repo, your AI assistant. A reader that stays out of the way can sit on top of all of them at once.

#Native, and it stays light

Built with SwiftUI. It launches fast, behaves like a Mac app, and doesn't ask you to learn a workspace concept first. The same folder is readable on iPhone and iPad with the same purchase — see Markdown on iPhone and iPad.

If the folder you want to browse is an Obsidian vault, it already works — see reading an Obsidian vault. If you mainly want the rendering, the Mac viewer page covers that side.