Plus it's WYSIWYG and weighs less than 2 MB.
You're on the list.
Check your inbox and confirm. After that you hear once, the day Fovea ships, and never again from this list.
macOS 15 Sequoia or laterFreeGNU AGPL v3
Formatting
The asterisks around a bold word fade out when the caret leaves it, and come back in pale grey when it returns. The word stays bold the whole way.
Markers at the start of a line wait until you reach the start of the line. Without that rule, running down a document would make every heading you pass jump.
## Field notes
The coffee goes cold while I write, and that is **exactly right**.
- reread chapter three
Tables and code
Columns line up, the header is bold, and the alignments written in the syntax are honoured. Put the caret in the grid and the pipes come back, to be edited as the plain text they are. A fenced code block behaves the same way, on its own ground, in the monospaced face, with eleven languages highlighted by weight and shade instead of colour.
Fidelity
Fovea never writes the file back from a syntax tree, so it cannot reformat a line you did not touch. Asterisks stay asterisks, list indentation is left where you put it, and a file with Windows line endings still has them on the way out.
Comparison
Obsidian is the better tool for a body of notes, and Fovea does not try to be one: no vault, no graph, no backlinks, no plugins. It does the other job, the one that lasts forty seconds, on the .md file you just double-clicked.
| Obsidian 1.13.7 | Fovea | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A vault of notes, linked and searched | A window over one file |
| To open a .md | Open its folder as a vault first | Double-click it |
| App on disk | 515 MB | 1.9 MB |
| Processes running | 4 | 1 |
| Memory, one document | 185 MB | 29 MB |
| Cold launch to window | 687 ms | 355 ms |
| Under the hood | A browser in a window | AppKit and TextKit 2 |
| Plugins | Thousands | None |
Measured 23 August 2026 on an M1 Pro running macOS 26, release builds, median of three cold launches, the same file in both. TextEdit opens that file in 400 ms on the same machine, which is the floor for a document app here: most of Fovea's 355 ms is macOS starting a process, not Fovea reading your file.
The editor already gets used every day. Apple signing and the built-in updater are what stand between it and your Mac.
You're on the list.
Check your inbox and confirm. After that you hear once, the day Fovea ships, and never again from this list.
macOS 15 Sequoia or later. Fovea is built on TextKit 2, and older versions of it carry fragment and attachment bugs that would have to be worked around by hand.
Where you put them. Fovea opens and saves files the way TextEdit does: no library, no folder of its own, nothing to import. iCloud Drive, an external disk or a git repository all work.
No, and it is built not to. If you are writing at length, write in the app that holds your notes. If you just need to read or fix one .md, this opens without a library to load first.
Because the job is forty seconds long. Export, printing, focus mode, a word counter and an editable table grid all existed and were all removed: each one was a thing to load, to maintain and to explain, in an app whose whole argument is that it is already open. They come back one at a time if enough people ask.
In part. Interface elements carry their roles, but VoiceOver still reads the hidden syntax in the text: macOS does not consult the attributes of the string for accessibility. The obvious workaround makes editing worse, so the question is still open.
Nothing. Fovea is a personal project under the GNU AGPL v3, with no paid tier planned. There is no account to create, and the app talks to no server: no analytics, no licence check.
The app is written and tested every day; what is left is Apple signing and the updater. Leave your address above and you will hear on the day it ships.
A question that is not here? Ask me on Threads.
Open a markdown file. Read it. Close it. Plus it's WYSIWYG and weighs less than 2 MB.
The asterisks around a bold word fade out when the caret leaves it, and come back in pale grey when it returns. The word stays bold the whole way.
Markers at the start of a line wait until you reach the start of the line. Without that rule, running down a document would make every heading you pass jump.
Columns line up, the header is bold, and the alignments written in the syntax are honoured. Put the caret in the grid and the pipes come back, to be edited as the plain text they are. A fenced code block behaves the same way, on its own ground, in the monospaced face, with eleven languages highlighted by weight and shade instead of colour.
Fovea never writes the file back from a syntax tree, so it cannot reformat a line you did not touch. Asterisks stay asterisks, list indentation is left where you put it, and a file with Windows line endings still has them on the way out.
Obsidian is the better tool for a body of notes, and Fovea does not try to be one: no vault, no graph, no backlinks, no plugins. It does the other job, the one that lasts forty seconds, on the .md file you just double-clicked.
| Obsidian 1.13.7 | Fovea | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A vault of notes, linked and searched | A window over one file |
| To open a .md | Open its folder as a vault first | Double-click it |
| App on disk | 515 MB | 1.9 MB |
| Processes running | 4 | 1 |
| Memory, one document | 185 MB | 29 MB |
| Cold launch to window | 687 ms | 355 ms |
| Under the hood | A browser in a window | AppKit and TextKit 2 |
| Plugins | Thousands | None |
macOS 15 Sequoia or later. Fovea is built on TextKit 2, and older versions of it carry fragment and attachment bugs that would have to be worked around by hand.
Where you put them. Fovea opens and saves files the way TextEdit does: no library, no folder of its own, nothing to import. iCloud Drive, an external disk or a git repository all work.
No, and it is built not to. If you are writing at length, write in the app that holds your notes. If you just need to read or fix one .md, this opens without a library to load first.
Because the job is forty seconds long. Export, printing, focus mode, a word counter and an editable table grid all existed and were all removed: each one was a thing to load, to maintain and to explain, in an app whose whole argument is that it is already open. They come back one at a time if enough people ask.
In part. Interface elements carry their roles, but VoiceOver still reads the hidden syntax in the text: macOS does not consult the attributes of the string for accessibility. The obvious workaround makes editing worse, so the question is still open.
Nothing. Fovea is a personal project under the GNU AGPL v3, with no paid tier planned. There is no account to create, and the app talks to no server: no analytics, no licence check.
The app is written and tested every day; what is left is Apple signing and the updater. Leave your address above and you will hear on the day it ships.
The editor already gets used every day. Apple signing and the built-in updater are what stand between it and your Mac.
# Fovea
**Open a markdown file. Read it. Close it.** Plus it's WYSIWYG and weighs less
than 2 MB.
macOS 15 Sequoia or later · Free · GNU AGPL v3
---
## Formatting
### The markers come back when you go looking for them.
The asterisks around a bold word fade out when the caret leaves it, and come
back in pale grey when it returns. The word stays bold the whole way.
Markers at the start of a line wait until you reach the start of the line.
Without that rule, running down a document would make every heading you pass
jump.
## Features
### A table reads as a table.
Columns line up, the header is bold, and the alignments written in the syntax
are honoured. Put the caret in the grid and the pipes come back, to be edited
as the plain text they are. A fenced code block behaves the same way, on its
own ground, in the monospaced face, with eleven languages highlighted by
weight and shade instead of colour.
### Your diff holds what you wrote, and nothing else.
Fovea never writes the file back from a syntax tree, so it cannot reformat a
line you did not touch. Asterisks stay asterisks, list indentation is left
where you put it, and a file with Windows line endings still has them on the
way out.
## The rest of the app
- **The syntax is one key away.** ⌥⌘S turns the document back into raw
markdown, the whole thing, exactly as it sits on disk. Anything more
elaborate than a bold word gets written there, in the syntax.
- **Paste the web, get markdown.** ⌘V converts rich text copied out of a
browser: headings, links, lists and code blocks arrive already written. ⌘⇧V
pastes it plain.
- **Images, in place.** An image the document links to is drawn in the text,
at the width of the column. Relative paths resolve against the file, so a
folder you move keeps working.
- **An ordinary document app.** Tabs, Recents, Time Machine versions, session
restore and iCloud Drive work because macOS provides them.
- **Four settings.** Theme, body font, code font, size. There were seventeen.
The other thirteen asked you to hold an opinion before you could read a
file, so they became defaults.
- **Nothing running.** No account, no server, no sync of ours. One process
while the window is open, and nothing at all once you close it.
## Comparison
### Next to Obsidian.
Obsidian is the better tool for a body of notes, and Fovea does not try to be
one: no vault, no graph, no backlinks, no plugins. It does the other job, the
one that lasts forty seconds, on the .md file you just double-clicked.
| | Obsidian 1.13.7 | Fovea |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What it is | A vault of notes, linked and searched | A window over one file |
| To open a .md | Open its folder as a vault first | Double-click it |
| App on disk | 515 MB | 1.9 MB |
| Processes running | 4 | 1 |
| Memory, one document | 185 MB | 29 MB |
| Cold launch to window | 687 ms | 355 ms |
| Under the hood | A browser in a window | AppKit and TextKit 2 |
| Plugins | Thousands | None |
Measured 23 August 2026 on an M1 Pro running macOS 26, release builds, median
of three cold launches, the same file in both. TextEdit opens that file in 400
ms on the same machine, which is the floor for a document app here: most of
Fovea's 355 ms is macOS starting a process, not Fovea reading your file.
## Questions
### Which Mac do I need?
macOS 15 Sequoia or later. Fovea is built on TextKit 2, and older versions of
it carry fragment and attachment bugs that would have to be worked around by
hand.
### Where do my files go?
Where you put them. Fovea opens and saves files the way TextEdit does: no
library, no folder of its own, nothing to import. iCloud Drive, an external
disk or a git repository all work.
### Does it replace my notes app?
No, and it is built not to. If you are writing at length, write in the app
that holds your notes. If you just need to read or fix one .md, this opens
without a library to load first.
### Why so few features?
Because the job is forty seconds long. Export, printing, focus mode, a word
counter and an editable table grid all existed and were all removed: each one
was a thing to load, to maintain and to explain, in an app whose whole
argument is that it is already open. They come back one at a time if enough
people ask.
### Does it work with VoiceOver?
In part. Interface elements carry their roles, but VoiceOver still reads the
hidden syntax in the text: macOS does not consult the attributes of the string
for accessibility. The obvious workaround makes editing worse, so the question
is still open.
### What does it cost?
Nothing. Fovea is a personal project under the GNU AGPL v3, with no paid tier
planned. There is no account to create, and the app talks to no server: no
analytics, no licence check.
### When does it ship?
The app is written and tested every day; what is left is Apple signing and the
updater. Leave your address above and you will hear on the day it ships.
---
> The editor already gets used every day. Apple signing and the built-in
> updater are what stand between it and your Mac.
A native markdown editor for macOS. The code will be published under the GNU
AGPL v3.