showmd
Why Choose showmd?
if ur on a mac and constantly need to peek inside markdown files without launching a heavy editor, this extension hits the spot early. it leverages native quick look so previews are instant and dont slow down workflow, which is huge when you’re skimming through dozens of docs. the standout feature is definitely how it parses yaml frontmatter into a collapsible table instead of just showing raw text—plus those agentcic ai xml tags actually render as bordered blocks rather than unreadable brackets. real talk though, there is a catch since its built exclusively for macOS, so folks using linus or windows won’t be able to install it. it also relies heavily on having structured data in your files, meaning if ur writing plain text posts without any metadata, you kinda lose the main benefit. still, for anyone managing technical docs or blogs with strict formatting on apple hardware, the visibility it adds is worth the platform limit. honestly, most other viewers dont bother parsing complex tags at all so this fills a gap that otherwise requires custom plugins. just dont expect it to do anything beyond viewing since its focused purely on the preview experience. best suited for power users who value speed over cross-platform compatibility.
Ever asked yourself why all of those SKILL.md files are rendered in plain text in MacOS Preview? showmd is a free, native macOS Quick Look extension that renders Markdown beautifully. YAML frontmatter parsed into a collapsible metadata table — collapsed by default, one click to expand. No other viewer does this. Agentic AI XML tags — and 17 more — rendered as labeled, bordered blocks instead of raw angle brackets.
showmd Introduction
What is showmd?
showmd is a free native mac Quick Look extension that renders Markdown files beautifully instead of plain text. It solves the annoyace of seeing raw code in preview by parsing YAML frontmatter into a table and converting those AI XML tags into bordered blocks. Honestly if u use mac for writing or dev work, this gives you way better UX out the box without needing extra software. Its super handy for quick checks and its totally free.
How to use showmd?
Getting set up is pretty straight forward. Just grab the instaler package and run it. Youll see a popup asking to extend the quicklook service — just click yes or whatever. Sometimes the finder doesnt catch it right away so restarting ur mac or just reloading the finder usually fixes it if the files still look plain. Once that’s done, you dont really need to do anything else to start using it. Now when ur browsing files in finder, select a .md document and hit the space bar. It opens up instantly with nice formatting instead of raw text. The yaml frontmatter gets parsed into a collapsable table automatically, collapsed at first so u can expand it with one tap if needed. Even weird agentic ai tags render as labeled blocks, which is way better than seeing angle brackets everywhere. Honestly, there isnt much config required since it handles everything out the box. If you ever wanna tweak settings, theres probably a prefs pane somewhere though defaults are solid enough for most use cases. Just grab a readme file from a repo and test it — u’ll notice the diff right away without messin around with plugins or extra apps.
Why Choose showmd?
if ur on a mac and constantly need to peek inside markdown files without launching a heavy editor, this extension hits the spot early. it leverages native quick look so previews are instant and dont slow down workflow, which is huge when you’re skimming through dozens of docs. the standout feature is definitely how it parses yaml frontmatter into a collapsible table instead of just showing raw text—plus those agentcic ai xml tags actually render as bordered blocks rather than unreadable brackets. real talk though, there is a catch since its built exclusively for macOS, so folks using linus or windows won’t be able to install it. it also relies heavily on having structured data in your files, meaning if ur writing plain text posts without any metadata, you kinda lose the main benefit. still, for anyone managing technical docs or blogs with strict formatting on apple hardware, the visibility it adds is worth the platform limit. honestly, most other viewers dont bother parsing complex tags at all so this fills a gap that otherwise requires custom plugins. just dont expect it to do anything beyond viewing since its focused purely on the preview experience. best suited for power users who value speed over cross-platform compatibility.