SoloMD
Calm Markdown writing
Free · In-App Purchases
SoloMD is a calm, fast Markdown editor for iPhone and iPad. Open the app and you are writing — no account, no sign-up, no subscription.
Your notes are plain .md and .txt files. Keep them in SoloMD's folder in the Files app, or open a folder you already use, and edit the files right where they are. Any editor on any device can read them, today and in ten years.
WRITING FIRST
- Live editing: Markdown marks step aside once the cursor leaves the line, so you see the document, not the syntax.
- Real typography: big headings, true bold, monospaced code, comfortable line length.
- Focus mode dims everything but the paragraph you are in; typewriter mode keeps your line at eye level.
- A formatting bubble appears over selected text; a keyboard bar puts headings, lists, links and code one tap away.
- Find and replace with match case, whole word and regular expressions.
- Light and dark themes that follow the system.
ON IPHONE
- A notes home screen, search and a new-note button within thumb's reach.
- Full-screen editor with a simple navigation bar.
ON IPAD
- Sidebar with your folders and notes, tabs, and an outline of the current document.
- Split view and Slide Over friendly; works with hardware keyboards and ⌘ shortcuts.
MARKDOWN THAT GOES FURTHER
- KaTeX math, inline and display.
- Mermaid flowcharts, sequence diagrams and Gantt charts.
- Tables, task lists with tappable checkboxes, footnotes, front matter, highlights.
- Syntax highlighting for 13+ languages.
- Tap an image or diagram to view it full screen with pinch-zoom.
- Fold headings to see the shape of a long document.
FOR CHINESE WRITERS
- Simplified ↔ Traditional conversion, pinyin, and CJK-aware word counts.
- Chinese proofreading for half-width punctuation and common slips.
- Opens UTF-8, UTF-16, GBK and Big5 files correctly.
EXPORT AND SHARE
- PDF with math and diagrams rendered.
- Word (.docx) with tables kept.
- HTML, or copy as HTML, plain text or Markdown.
PRIVATE BY DESIGN
SoloMD collects no data. No account, no analytics, no ads, no tracking. Your notes stay in files you own.
SoloMD is open source under the MIT license: github.com/zhitongblog/solomd
100% FREE FOREVER & SUPPORTER BADGE
Every feature in SoloMD is 100% free forever — no paywalls, no subscriptions, and no locked features. Optional one-time In-App Purchases (Buy a Coffee / Buy a Lunch / Generous Support) are purely voluntary tips to support independent open-source development, and permanently unlock the exclusive "Supporter" badge in Settings and About.
more SoloMD 5.0.9:
- Fixed PDF (Text & Image), DOCX, HTML, and PNG exports on iOS and Android, with local/SAF images embedded cleanly.
- Preserved indentation when inserting fenced code blocks after Shift+Enter inside lists, and added two-stage Cmd/Ctrl+A selection inside code blocks.
- Added an optional setting to display the document's first line as the tab title, and added Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+H for ==highlight== formatting.
- Rendered tables inside blockquotes in Live Edit (#480) and added optional automatic multi-level heading numbering (#484).
5.0.9 14 hr ago
• Native WebDAV Sync on Desktop (Settings → General → WebDAV Sync): sync notes across devices with Nextcloud, ownCloud, Nutstore, Alist, or any standard WebDAV server, with connection testing, one-click sync, scheduled background sync, and incremental manifest merging (#458).
• Spreadsheet Paste to Markdown Table: copying cells from Excel, WPS, Numbers, or web tables now prioritizes HTML/TSV table data over clipboard bitmap snapshots and converts them directly into Markdown tables (#460).
• Ordered List Renumbering Fix: ordered lists separated by headings or other blocks are no longer renumbered continuously across sections, and custom starting numbers are preserved (#466).
• Live Preview & Reading Mode Fixes: fixed tables immediately following blockquotes being swallowed into the blockquote in Preview (#464); fixed Vue/Svelte/Astro fenced code blocks rendering inner template HTML tags when unfocused in Live Preview (#457); restored hover tooltips on Mermaid diagram links (#462).
• Per-Document Reading Progress & Settings Polish: reading mode scroll position is now remembered independently per file when switching tabs (#456); added "Cycle Editor Mode" to configurable keyboard shortcuts (#459); refined the Settings modal dimensions, stabilized category switching height, and fixed search result scrolling & highlight flash (#455, #465).
• iPad Full-Screen & Cold-Start Optimization: removed legacy orientation plist keys and added a full-bleed LaunchScreen.storyboard so older iPads run in native full-screen resolution without bottom letterbox bars, plus deferred heavy CJK font bundles until first paint for faster startup (#461).
5.0.6 2 days ago
- Voluntary Tip Jar & Supporter Badge: Every feature in SoloMD remains 100% free forever with no paywalls. You can now support independent development via three optional in-app tip tiers (Buy Me a Coffee / Working Meal / Super Supporter) to unlock the exclusive Supporter Badge in Settings and About, with full Restore Purchases support.
- LanguageTool Grammar & Style Checking: Connect to a self-hosted local server, LanguageTool Premium, or the public API.
- Export & Print Improvements: Added a dedicated Print action, custom theme CSS injection in HTML/PDF exports, and improved numbered/bulleted list formatting when copying to Microsoft Word.
- Editor & Rendering Refinements: Added LaTeX \[...\] and \(...\) math delimiter support, pure source mode toggle, slideshow light theme and font zoom, automatic Mermaid label quoting, macOS security-scoped folder bookmarks, and iPadOS appearance and hardware keyboard polish.
5.0.4 22 Oct
SoloMD 5.0.2 fixes several editor, preview, and UI issues:
- Improved Find & Replace regex error feedback, empty-replacement handling, and active match highlighting across light and dark themes.
- Fixed Tab Bar drag-and-drop reordering and file rename validation.
- Fixed Split View and Preview Mode synchronized scrolling and image rendering for relative paths and spaces.
- Added confirmation before applying batch CJK proofreading changes.
- Improved Outline heading navigation and Table of Contents generation.
5.0.2 17 Oct
SoloMD 5.0 — a calmer place to write.
• A redesigned window: a quiet header with Live / Source / Split / Preview one tap apart, a sidebar for your folders and notes, pill-shaped tabs, and a small word-count pill instead of a status bar.
• iPhone: a notes home screen, search and a new-note button at the bottom, and a full-screen editor.
• iPad: in portrait the sidebar slides over the page instead of squeezing it.
• A new find bar: it stays out of the way, keeps your place, and supports match case, whole word and regular expressions.
• Select text for a formatting bubble; on iPhone and iPad a keyboard bar adds headings, lists, links and code.
• Fold headings from the gutter to see the shape of a long document.
• Menus and shortcuts reorganized; every shortcut can be rebound, and shortcuts show ⌘ on iPad.
• Faster first paint: math and code highlighting load after the page appears.
• Chinese proofreading no longer flags file names like 文档.md or an ellipsis as punctuation mistakes.
Thanks to 张工 for weeks of careful testing that shaped this release.
5.0.0 12 Oct
SoloMD 4.14.11 fixes problems found in a full test pass. Several of them could change or lose text, so we recommend updating.
• Chinese proofreading no longer treats file names (文档.md, 压缩包.tar.gz) or an ellipsis as punctuation mistakes, so "Fix all" can't rewrite them.
• Importing a Word document keeps bold where it was, and brings back numbered lists, task lists and links. Word export marks tasks with [ ] / [x].
• UTF-16 files are saved back as UTF-16; Simplified/Traditional conversion no longer drops what you just typed.
• Redo (⌘⇧Z) no longer also starts a writing session.
• The find and replace bar follows the app's language.
• Code blocks and bold can be turned off from inside them; Tab nests numbered list items properly; a new note is ready to type in.
• Backlinks jump to the right line; New Type works in any folder; split view stays level when scrolling through lists; a broken Mermaid diagram no longer shifts the window.
Thanks to 张工 for the testing behind this release.
4.14.11 9 Oct
⌘F opens the find bar in the editor again — the shortcut had stopped responding since 4.14.8.
Thank you to our tester 张工, whose reports led to this fix.
4.14.10 7 Oct
Formulas are no longer cut off at the bottom in preview, split view and exports.
Wide tables wrap inside the page in PDF, print, HTML and image export.
New commands: raise or lower a heading level, turn a heading back into a paragraph, select word, select line, reopen a closed tab.
The toolbar is tidier: New, Open, Export, Insert and the view modes are now menus.
Thank you to our tester 张工, whose careful reports led to many of these fixes.
4.14.8 5 Oct
Pick any folder in the Files app as your workspace — iCloud Drive, On My iPhone or another app's folder. SoloMD remembers it across launches.
SoloMD's own folder now shows up in the Files app under On My iPhone › SoloMD.
Notes opened from the Files app are edited in place: saving updates the original instead of making a copy.
Rename, move and delete files in the file tree: long-press a file or tap ⋯.
Folders you opened before an update open again, instead of saying they are no longer there.
SoloMD from the App Store sends no usage data, and asks for a rating only with Apple's own rating sheet.
4.14.7 3 Oct
Ordered lists keep their numbers in order: add or delete an item and the rest renumber themselves.
Bold, italic, strikethrough and code over several paragraphs now format each paragraph on its own, instead of one pair of markers that showed up as literal asterisks.
Menus: Find and Replace in the Edit menu, the zoom commands in a View › Zoom submenu, and the Help menu lists the Markdown cheatsheet, keyboard shortcuts and the command line separately. The Insert menu gains headings 4–6.
Links in rendered notes always open in your browser, never inside SoloMD.
After a few days of use, SoloMD asks once — and only once — whether you'd like to star it on GitHub.
4.14.6 3 Oct
Export PDF (text) on Mac now saves straight to a file: no print dialog, and no printer needed.
Word export keeps every image, including web images and images inside a sentence, a table or a list. PlantUML diagrams now appear in Word and PDF exports, and the image PDF keeps web images.
Text PDF: integral signs in formulas print correctly, and code is no longer faded.
Settings search steps through matches and hides empty categories. In the file tree, ⌘⌫ deletes and F2 renames, and dragging shows what the drop will do.
The unsaved-changes dialog answers to ⌘S, ⌘D and Esc. ⌘1 now works on an empty first line.
Split view can stop syncing: the preview then refreshes when you save. Choosing A4 turns on page numbers in the PDF table of contents.
4.14.5 1 Oct
Sort the file tree by name, creation date or modification date, or drag files into your own order. New files go at the end.
Search in Settings: filter every settings page by name or description.
Steadier editing: optionally keep Markdown markers visible so lines never jump as you move the cursor, and tint the current line. In preview, outline jumps land exactly on the heading, and the outline follows what you are reading.
Russian is now an interface language, and the status bar is translated.
Exports: the PDF table of contents gets a title and page numbers, and all exports use neutral colours.
A new shortcut, ⌘⌥/, flips between live edit and edit only.
4.14.4 26 Sept
Pasted images show up even when their folder path contains a space. Such paths made the image link invalid Markdown, so the note showed the link text instead of the picture. Older notes with these links now render in preview and export too.
The file tree follows the file you are working on: switching notes expands the folders above it and selects it. You can turn this off in Settings.
Exports: standalone HTML now prints on white paper, and the text PDF can start with a table-of-contents page (Settings → PDF).
A quieter screen: hide the toolbar buttons with ⌘⌥⇧T, and the AI rewrite button stays hidden until AI is enabled. Community themes now apply fully whichever built-in theme is selected, and the Chinese proofreading panel title no longer repeats a character.
The About screen now thanks the project's sponsors.
4.14.3 25 Sept
“Open in default app” works again. A misplaced permission rule refused every attempt to open a file with another app — the toolbar button, linked PDF and Office files, the dictionaries folder. Any document opens now; programs and scripts are still refused.
Printed PDFs contain every page. The text PDF stopped after the first page, and long tables now repeat their header row on each page. The image PDF no longer cuts through a line of text or a table row at a page break.
Exported HTML stands on its own. Mermaid diagrams are embedded as drawings instead of showing their source, math fonts and local images are embedded too, and the file no longer waits on a download to open. Word export includes Mermaid diagrams as images.
The file tree: deleting asks first (and still goes to the Trash), folders have icons and indent guides, the selected item is highlighted and decides where a new file goes, folders can open on double-click (Settings), a new shortcut creates a note in the selected folder, and “Reveal in File Tree” scrolls to the file.
Smaller things: Esc closes the image viewer, and typing ``` suggests code-block languages.
4.14.2 24 Sept
The table editor types forwards. Typing into a cell came out reversed — "abc" became "cba" — because every keystroke rewrote the cell and sent the cursor back to its start. Rows and columns you add, move or delete still keep every cell's text in place.
Split panes can be closed. Dragging a tab onto the editor splits it into two views of the same note, and the extra pane had no visible way out; it even came back after a restart. Every pane now has its own close button while there is more than one.
Every open file is one tap away. When the tabs no longer fit, a ⌄ button lists them all, with unsaved ones marked.
The file tree: a new file or folder is named where it will actually appear, inside its folder, not at the top of the tree. Long file names use the full width of the sidebar instead of a fixed 30 characters. Image attachment folders (_assets and name.assets) are hidden unless "Show hidden files" is on, so they can't be renamed or moved by accident.
Tables: short cells no longer get squeezed into a one-character column beside a long one, in the app and in PDF, HTML and image export.
On iPhone, the expanded toolbar now wraps inside the screen, so Settings and the other buttons at the end can be reached in portrait. Toolbar menus use the window's height instead of scrolling after 360 points.
4.14.1 24 Sept
Formatting has keyboard shortcuts. Bold, italic, strikethrough, inline code, link, headings 1–6, quote, lists and code block — press once on a selection to apply, again to remove. With a hardware keyboard they work everywhere; without one, the same commands lead the Insert menu, each with its key beside it. Prefer ⌘B for bold? The Writer preset in Settings → Shortcuts swaps it in with one tap.
Shortcuts you can find. F1 → Shortcuts now lists your real, current bindings and can be searched by name or by key. A standalone [TOC] line expands into a table of contents. Blank lines in a numbered code block keep their own row.
A note can no longer run code. Inline HTML in a markdown file was rendered straight into the app with nothing filtering it, so a script hidden in someone else's note ran inside the editor. Rendered markdown is now sanitised everywhere it appears — preview, live edit, slideshow and every export. Ordinary inline HTML still works; scripts, event handlers and javascript: links do not. If you have opened markdown you did not write, this is the update to take.
Mermaid diagrams render when exporting a text PDF. The text path used to print the diagram's source instead of the picture. Printing also stopped fetching its maths stylesheet from the network, so equations keep their styling offline.
The document name no longer disappears on a narrow window, and the overflow toolbar is a third of the height it was, with no gap in the middle of the second row.
Choosing a theme that appears to do nothing now explains itself: an installed marketplace theme that defines both light and dark colours overrides the built-in dropdown, which now names it and offers one click to turn it off.
The app starts faster. Everything used to be compiled before the first frame — the diagram renderer, both Chinese dictionaries, the PDF and Word exporters, the slideshow. They now load when something asks for them, and first paint is about 30% quicker.
A file changed by another editor — or while SoloMD was closed — is noticed now, on launch and whenever the window comes back. Unsaved edits are never overwritten.
The button that shows and hides the right sidebar always does something. It used to flip a flag that changed nothing whenever every panel in the strip was switched off.
4.14.0 22 Sept
Move files and folders without leaving the app. Drag a note onto a folder, or pick "Move to…" from its menu and type a few letters to find the destination. Moves can be undone, open tabs follow the file, and relative links inside a moved note are re-anchored so its images keep working.
Show hidden files. Dot-files and dot-folders were unreachable from inside the app; a new setting lists them, off by default.
Filter the file tree by file type. The list offers the extensions your vault actually contains, with counts, and folders holding no match collapse away with them. A banner names the active filter so it can never read as missing files.
Tell the editor and the preview apart in split view. An optional shade for the preview pane, derived from whichever theme you use, so a split stops reading as one wide column.
A window too narrow for the toolbar no longer clips it silently. When the row overflows, a button opens the whole toolbar as two or three labelled rows where every control is visible and named.
4.13.0 14 Sept
Fold a heading and everything under it. Click the arrow in the gutter, or use the Fold commands to collapse one section, every section, or everything below a level.
Printing no longer follows your app theme. A dark theme used to print dark — ink on paper, or a PDF nobody could read. Print and PDF now use their own light palette, with an explicit dark option if that is what you wanted.
Deleting a file gives you eight seconds to undo. Nothing is moved somewhere clever: the file stays exactly where it is until the timer runs out.
Quick capture, from anywhere. A system-wide chord opens a small box over whatever you are doing. Type a line, press Enter, and it lands in your Inbox without SoloMD ever coming forward.
A Tasks panel. Every "- [ ]" in the workspace, in one list, with priorities and due dates read from either the Obsidian Tasks emoji or a plain-ASCII form. Click a task to jump to its line; tick it to write the file.
Import Word, PDF, HTML and spreadsheets. The converters were already here with no way to reach them, and importing a name that already exists now picks the next free one instead of overwriting.
Edit a table as a grid. Add and remove rows and columns without counting pipes. CJK text is padded by display width, so the Markdown source stays aligned instead of drifting a column per character.
DOCX templates — cover page, contents, running header, page numbers. Numbered equations, with \eqref links that jump to them.
Fixes: a deleted workspace folder no longer looks like an empty vault, and four file-tree menu entries that printed their key names in all fourteen languages now read as labels.
4.12.0 8 Sept
A layout built for a phone, not a shrunken desktop. The file tree and side panels now slide over the editor as drawers instead of squeezing it out of the way, split view stacks vertically, the toolbar keeps the six controls you actually reach for (everything else is one tap away, now with labels), and the status bar stops wrapping onto a second line. Tablets keep the desktop layout.
Also in this release:
- Bold text ending in a full-width punctuation mark renders correctly
- Multi-line $$ formulas stay in one piece in the block editor
- Export starts in the document's own folder
- Reading mode uses the font you chose, and its exit button no longer covers the first heading
- The first-run AI setup offers every provider with an editable base URL, and can verify servers that publish no model list
- New provider: any OpenAI-compatible server you host yourself (llama.cpp, LM Studio, vLLM)
- Code blocks have a copy button while you edit - it copies the code, without the fences or indentation
- Ollama running on another machine on your network is now detected
4.11.19 27 Aug
Find (Cmd+F) now scrolls to the first match as you type — no more hunting on long notes. Plus editor polish and stability improvements.
4.9.6 21 Jul
Fixes for opening files on iOS:
- Opening files from the Files app, AirDrop, and other apps now works reliably
- Recent files no longer break after an app update
- "Open Folder" now pins the workspace to SoloMD's Documents folder
- The tab bar can be scrolled with a swipe
4.8.9 2 Jul
Version 4.6.2 — the knowledge-graph update.
NEW STRUCTURE LAYER
• Properties inspector — edit YAML front-matter with type/date/status/relation pickers; surgical writes preserve your comments and quoting byte-for-byte
• Type-driven sidebar — give a note "type: Project" and its members become a first-class collapsible section with custom icon, colour and columns
• Typed relationships — belongs_to / related_to / has with automatic inverse links
• Relationship graph — explore every note's neighborhood of outgoing and incoming links; tap to navigate
• Saved filtered views — persistent sidebar views with a recursive all/any filter builder (type, status, date, regex)
• Inbox workflow — mark a note organized and auto-advance to inbox zero
• Whiteboards — Markdown-backed tldraw boards inside a tldraw code fence, lazy-loaded so the app stays light
POLISH & FIXES
• From-scratch design system — consistent spacing, colours and focus states across every panel
• Configurable outline heading markers (letters / numbers / none)
• Pinch-to-zoom for the whole app
• Fixed: typing with CJK input methods no longer gets interrupted mid-composition
• Many smaller fixes and performance improvements since 4.1
Enjoying SoloMD? Rate it on the App Store and share with other writers!
4.6.2 13 Jun
Initial public release of SoloMD for iPhone and iPad.
• Lightweight, distraction-free Markdown editor
• Live preview with KaTeX math and Mermaid diagrams
• Syntax highlighting and code blocks
• Open .md and .txt files from the Files app
• Save to On My iPhone / SoloMD folder, accessible via Files app
• Native iOS Share Sheet for sharing notes (AirDrop, Messages, Mail, iCloud Drive)
• Copy as HTML, Markdown, plain text, or image
4.1.7 12 May
SoloMD 5.0.9:
- Fixed PDF (Text & Image), DOCX, HTML, and PNG exports on iOS and Android, with local/SAF images embedded cleanly.
- Preserved indentation when inserting fenced code blocks after Shift+Enter inside lists, and added two-stage Cmd/Ctrl+A selection inside code blocks.
- Added an optional setting to display the document's first line as the tab title, and added Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+H for ==highlight== formatting.
- Rendered tables inside blockquotes in Live Edit (#480) and added optional automatic multi-level heading numbering (#484).
more Version 5.0.9 14 hr ago
Data Not Collected The developer does not collect any data from this app.