The best markdown viewer extensions in 2026
Markdown Viewer, Markdown Reader, and Skim compared honestly: price, open source, maintenance, live reload, and who each one is actually right for.
Read the comparison →Everything about reading markdown
Short, honest guides on opening .md files, working with AI agent output, and picking a viewer. Read what's useful, skip the rest.
Skim vs…Comparison
Comparison
file.mdGuide
Guide
How to open a .md file
Every way to open and read a markdown file, and the fastest one on any operating system.
Read guide →chat.mdAI
AI
Claude or ChatGPT gave you a .md file?
Turn an AI chat's raw markdown into a clean, readable page in a few seconds.
Read guide →README.mdGuide
Guide
Open a README.md
Read a project's README the way GitHub renders it, straight from your machine.
Read guide →notes.mdWindows
Windows 11
Open .md files on Windows 11
Default apps, viewers, and the fastest path to a formatted markdown file on Windows.
Read guide →notes.mdmacOS
macOS
Open .md files on Mac
Quick Look, Preview, and browser viewers, and which one actually reads well on macOS.
Read guide →AGENTS.mdReference
Reference
What is an AGENTS.md file?
The convention AI coding agents read to learn your project, explained plainly.
Read reference →CLAUDE.mdReference
Reference
What is a CLAUDE.md file?
How Claude Code uses CLAUDE.md, and what's worth putting in one.
Read reference →Reading a lot of markdown? Skim renders every .md file you open.