A quiet place to write.

Glassine is a Markdown writing app for the Mac. A window of translucent glass, a caret that glides instead of jumps, and files that are plain text in iCloud Drive — saved as you type, yours to keep.

Get Glassine Read the manual

On the Mac App Store soon, as Glassine Writer — in review.

An essay open on a sheet of dark glass, with the library in a sidebar on the left

What it is

Fewer features than most writing apps, and fewer interruptions. Everything it does is on one screen or one key away.

Focus mode with typewriter scrolling — **Focus mode and typewriter scrolling.** The paragraph you are writing stays put and lit; the rest steps back, Markdown styling intact.

Review mode in the Glass style — **Review.** ⌘↩ renders the document as a finished page in one of five styles, then puts you back where you were.

All Documents, the mosaic view of the library — **All Documents.** The library as a wall of cards with live previews; a click grows the card into the page.

Timelapse, the corridor of daily notes — **Timelapse.** Today's note in front, earlier days receding behind it. Scroll to walk back.

And the rest

Glass. The window is a blur of whatever is behind it, tinted by the theme. Nine built in, dark by default; make your own with live preview.
A caret that glides. Speed, blink and width are yours to set. Off under Reduce Motion.
A library, not a file picker. Plain .md files and folders in iCloud Drive, named from the first line as you write.
Autosave that never asks. Half a second after you stop typing, and every few seconds while you keep going.
Tasks that behave. Click a box; the strike sweeps across; a moment later the item settles below the unfinished ones.
Dates as you type. @today becomes the date, drawn as a capsule, kept as text.
Markdown, lightly styled. Syntax stays visible but steps back — headings, emphasis, code, quotes, lists, links, tags.
Nothing sent anywhere. No accounts, no analytics, no servers. The privacy page is one paragraph.

Get it

Requires macOS 14 or later. Free, open source, MIT.

Mac App Store IN REVIEW

Listed as Glassine Writer — the plain name was already reserved there. The app itself is Glassine everywhere. The link goes here when it is live.

Direct download SOON

A notarized .dmg under Releases on GitHub, with a built-in check for new versions.

Build from source NOW

Xcode's tools, three lines, a minute.

git clone https://github.com/a-libre/glassine
cd glassine
./build.sh --install

Support

The manual covers every feature, key and setting. For a bug or a question, open an issue on GitHub; Help → Copy Debug Info in the app puts everything useful on your clipboard to paste in.