Skein Notes
Markdown notes, connected
Only for Mac
Free
Mac
Your notes are a folder of Markdown files. That is the whole setup. No account, no database, no plugins to curate. Free, native, never touches the network.
Your notes are plain Markdown files in a folder you choose. Skein opens that folder and gets out of the way.
There is no import and no export, because there is nothing to convert. If you already keep a vault of Markdown files from another app, point Skein at the same folder and start reading. Your notes stay ordinary files on your Mac: open them anywhere, back them up yourself, put them in version control.
SEE AROUND AN IDEA The local graph shows the neighbourhood of the note you are reading, not a map of everything. Parents above, children below, siblings and related notes beside, worked out from your folders and links. Nothing to label by hand. Click any note to re-centre on it.
WRITE WITHOUT DISTRACTION Markdown renders as you type. Headings look like headings, bold looks bold, and the text never shifts as the cursor moves, because rendering is driven by what is on the line, never by where the caret is. Prefer raw syntax? One setting shows it.
THINK ON A CANVAS New in 1.1: an infinite board for cards, connections and groups. Boards are stored in the open JSON Canvas format, as plain files in your vault, portable to other tools that read the same format. The canvas draws only what is on screen, so large boards stay smooth. Double-click for a card, drag from a card's edge to connect, Cmd+G to group, Cmd+F to find. Export a board as PDF or an image.
FIND ANYTHING Full-text search ranks titles and headings above body text. Jump between notes with the quick switcher, reach every action from the command palette, and find your notes in Spotlight.
NEVER LOSE WORK A version of every note is kept on every save, outside your vault. Renaming a note rewrites every link to it across the vault, with undo. If a sync service changes a file while you are editing, Skein keeps both versions and tells you. Deleting moves to the Trash.
CONNECT YOUR THINKING Wikilinks with aliases, headings and embeds. Backlinks with context. Unlinked mentions. Tags, daily notes, templates, tabs, split view, inline images, and export to paginated PDF, self-contained HTML, or Markdown verbatim.
PRIVATE BY ARCHITECTURE Native Swift and AppKit. Skein makes no network connections. No account, no sync service, no telemetry. There is nothing to collect.
FREE No subscription, no in-app purchases, no paid tier. Skein is funded by optional donations, and donating unlocks nothing.
From TeZe, the developer of Verso (writing) and Nought (spreadsheets).
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
• True White, a clean light theme alongside Paper and True Black
• An inbox folder for new notes, and moving a note from the keyboard
• Quick Look support for your notes in Finder
• Five new shapes on the canvas
• Add and remove frontmatter properties, not just edit them
• Open any note in your external editor of choice
• A remappable quick capture shortcut
Fixed: a crash on launch, opening a vault could drop raw frontmatter so a property edit rewrote the file, PDF export, the window not returning from the Window menu, sidebar rows now highlight under the pointer, and text no longer went missing when switching notes straight after typing.
The developer, Tomasz Smieja, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Teze Ltd
- Size
- 10.2 MB
- Category
- Productivity
- Compatibility
Requires macOS 14.0 or later.
- Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later.
- Mac
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 TeZe
