Guide

Open a Markdown file without a vault

You have one .md file and you want to read it. Not import it, not index it, not pick a workspace first. Glance opens a Markdown file the way Preview opens a PDF: double-click, or press Space in Finder.

Why the notes apps say no

Obsidian works on vaults, folders it indexes so that backlinks, search, and the graph have something to operate on. A file outside every vault does not fit that model, so the app cannot open it, and the answer on the forum has stayed the same for years. Logseq, Notion, and the rest arrange themselves the same way: a library first, a document second.

That is the right design for a knowledge base and the wrong one for the file sitting in your Downloads folder. Creating a vault to read one README is a strange amount of ceremony, and it leaves configuration behind on disk afterwards.

A document, not a workspace

	Glance	A vault-based app1
Opening one loose .md file
Setup before the first read	None	Create a vault
Preview on Space in Finder
Reading and editing in one view
Writes nothing beside your file
Set as the default app for .md

One view, nothing to toggle

Note apps that do render Markdown tend to split the job in two. Obsidian gives you a reading view and an editing view with a shortcut between them, and you learn to hit it a hundred times a day. The document you read and the document you change are two states of the same window, and you are always in the wrong one.

Glance has one state. The rendered page accepts typing: click a sentence and fix it, select two words for a formatting toolbar, click a table cell and Tab across the row, or click a Mermaid diagram to rewrite the source behind it. Type ## at the start of a line and it becomes a heading as you type.

What it leaves behind

Nothing. Glance saves plain Markdown to the same path and writes no index, no sidecar, no dot-folder, and no front matter you did not type. A file you fix in Glance opens in your vault later as an ordinary file, because that is all it ever was.

Keep both

This is not an argument to leave Obsidian. A vault is the better tool for a body of linked notes you return to, and nothing here replaces that. Glance covers the files that never belonged in a vault: a README in a cloned repo, a spec someone emailed you, the CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md files your coding agent keeps rewriting, a changelog you want to skim and close.

Related

See Markdown Quick Look for macOS for how the Finder preview works, or the step-by-step setup guide. For the app-by-app version of this argument, see the Obsidian comparison and the roundup of Mac Markdown apps.