Guide

How to preview Markdown files in Finder

macOS won't render Markdown in Quick Look on its own. Here's how to fix that in under a minute, so pressing Space on any .md file shows the formatted document.

Step by step

1. 1

   Download Glance

   Download the Glance DMG from glance.md. It is around 8 MB and works on macOS 14 or later, on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

2. 2

   Move Glance to Applications

   Open the DMG and drag the Glance app into your Applications folder.

3. 3

   Open Glance once

   Launch Glance a single time. macOS registers its bundled Quick Look extension on first launch — you can quit the app afterward.

4. 4

   Press Space on a Markdown file

   In Finder, select any .md or .markdown file and press the Space bar. Quick Look shows the rendered document instead of raw Markdown source.

If previews don't appear

Quick Look extensions occasionally need a nudge. Open System Settings ▸ General ▸ Login Items & Extensions ▸ Quick Look and make sure Glance is toggled on. If it still shows raw text, log out and back in (or restart) so macOS reloads its Quick Look registry. As a last resort, run qlmanage -r in Terminal to reset the cache.

What you can preview

Beyond plain prose, Glance renders tables, syntax-highlighted code blocks, images, Mermaid diagrams, and LaTeX math — all natively, with no browser involved. It's especially handy for AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md files in AI coding projects.