New Plume 1.1.0 is out

Markdown, beautifully set.

Double-click any .md file and it opens instantly — no vault, no project, no editor chrome. Just the document, typeset the way it deserves.

Free and open source · Windows, macOS and Linux · Source on GitHub

Plume showing a note with its folder tree, a callout and a table
Why Plume

A reader, not another editor.

Every Markdown app wants to own your notes. Plume just opens the file you clicked, renders it properly, and gets out of the way.

Opens with one double-click

Plume registers itself for .md, .markdown, .mkd and five more extensions. A second file opens in a new window of the running app — no cold start.

Reads Obsidian notes properly

Wiki links, embeds and section transclusion, callouts, ==highlights==, #tags, block ids and front-matter Properties — all rendered the way Obsidian does it.

Full GitHub-flavoured Markdown

Tables, task lists, footnotes, definition lists, emoji shortcodes, syntax highlighting, KaTeX math and Mermaid diagrams — rendered, not escaped.

Sidebar and outline

The folder tree around your file — the whole vault when the note lives in one — and an outline of every heading, with an honest reading time.

Live reload that keeps your place

Save the file in any editor and Plume updates in place — same scroll position, same spot on the page. Write in one window, read in the other.

Safe with files you did not write

Documents are sanitised, scripts never run, and links never launch programs. A note cannot make Plume pull files off other machines on your network.

Screenshots

Light or dark, it reads like a book.

Set the theme, the text size, the reading width and the typeface once. Plume remembers.

Plume rendering a note in dark mode
Dark mode. Follows your system, or pin it either way.
Highlighted code, a Mermaid diagram and the outline sidebar
Code, diagrams and outline. Mermaid and KaTeX render inline.
The reading settings panel: theme, text size, width, font and line breaks
Reading settings. Theme, size, width, serif or sans, line breaks.
Plume's welcome screen listing recent files
Welcome screen. Your recent documents, one click away.
For Obsidian users

Your vault, without opening the vault.

Share a note with someone who does not run Obsidian, or just read one note without waiting for a whole workspace to load. Plume speaks the same dialect.

  • Wiki links — [[note]], [[Note#Heading|alias]], and they resolve across the vault.
  • Embeds and transclusion — ![[image.png|300]] and ![[Note#Section]].
  • Callouts — > [!tip], including the foldable > [!warning]- kind.
  • Properties from front matter, #tags, %%comments%% and ^block ids.
  • Open in Obsidian for vault files, when you do want the full thing.
A vault note open in Plume with its folder tree in the sidebar
A vault note in Plume. The tree on the left is the real vault.
Everything else

The small things you expect.

Find in page

Ctrl+F, with next and previous and a match count — the way a browser does it.

Back and forward

Follow a link between notes and walk back out, with Alt+← or your mouse side buttons.

Print and export to PDF

On white paper, with a real PDF outline built from your headings.

Open in your editor

Jump into VS Code or Cursor if you have them, or the system text editor. Ctrl+E.

Images and code

Click an image for a lightbox; every code block gets a copy button that copies what you can see.

Keyboard first

Sidebar, text size, reload, new window, full screen — all on keys you already know.

Keyboard shortcuts
ActionKeys
Open fileCtrl+O
Find / next / previousCtrl+F, Enter, Shift+Enter
Back / forwardAlt+← / Alt+→
Toggle sidebarCtrl+\
Text sizeCtrl+= / Ctrl+- / Ctrl+0
Open in editorCtrl+E
PrintCtrl+P

On macOS, use ⌘ in place of Ctrl and ⌥ in place of Alt.

Plume Vault

Your notes, on every machine.

Plume reads the files already on your disk — that part is free, forever, and needs no account. Create one anyway and you get a vault: sync a document from your laptop and open it on your desktop, or in any browser.

100 MB, free with an account

Thousands of notes. Sign up with an email and a password — no card, no trial clock, no telemetry.

Sync from inside Plume

Sign in once under ⋯ → Plume Vault. Push the open document, or let every save go up by itself.

Yours, and private

Documents sit in private storage no one else can list. Passwords are hashed with scrypt. Nothing is indexed, shared or sold.

Create a free vault

Read your Markdown today.

Free, open source, and about as heavy as a feather. Version 1.1.0.

Download Plume
Windows 10 & 11 macOS, Apple silicon & Intel Linux, AppImage & .deb