Marginmargin Download
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Plain files

Your notes are just files

A space is a folder you choose, and every note is one Markdown file inside it. Margin is a fast view over that folder, nothing more.

~/Margin/Personal
├── sourdough-attempt-four.md
├── weekly-review.md
├── kyoto-seven-days.md
└── assets/
    └── crumb-shot.jpg

$ head -4 sourdough-attempt-four.md
---
margin_id: 8f2a…
---
# Sourdough, attempt four

One folder per space

Point Margin at any folder of Markdown, including one you already keep for another app or inside a git repo. Each note is a single .md file you can read with anything.

An id in the frontmatter

Every note carries a small margin_id line at the top. It is how a note keeps its identity through renames and moves, so links between notes never break.

Edits from anywhere

Change a file in vim, VS Code or Finder, or pull a branch, and Margin catches up before you have switched windows. Its own saves never echo back as outside changes.

Images and attachments

Drop or paste a file into a note and Margin copies it into the space’s own assets folder, next to the notes that use it.

Export when you need it

A whole space, or one note as Markdown, HTML, Rich Text or PDF. You rarely need it, because the files already are the export.

Leaving is free

Delete Margin and every note stays exactly where it was. No database to migrate, no account to close, no sync service holding anything.

Try it on your own notes
Free during the alpha · macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon · 10 MB
Download the alpha

More of Margin

Seamless Markdown
Markdown editor for Mac with live inline preview

You type Markdown and it renders as you go. No preview pane, no second copy, no toolbar. The markers step aside when the cursor leaves them.
Effortless separation
Separate work and personal notes with spaces

Each space is its own folder, its own note list, its own search and its own tint. One click and the others stop existing for a while.
Notes that know each other
Wikilinks and backlinks between Markdown notes

Links between notes point at the note, not the filename, so reorganising at eleven at night does not break a single one.
Nested notes
Nested notes as plain folders of Markdown files

Every parent is itself a note, with its own words, not a bare folder. The tree underneath is plain files and folders that read fine anywhere else.
Links that know their state
GitHub pull request and issue cards inside your notes

Paste a link to a pull request or an issue and it shows its state, its checks and where the review stands, right in the note.
Your prompts, your model
AI for your notes: your own API key, Claude Code or a local model

It does nothing on its own: no indexing, no reading as you type. Only what you point it at goes to the model you picked, and only when you ask.