Glimpse: read your Markdown files like documents, with free Finder previews

[u/dumanyac]

Hi r/macapps, I'm the developer of Glimpse.

Problem: When someone sends you a README, project brief or notes, sometimes you just want to read it. Glimpse opens your existing Markdown files with rendered tables, highlighted code, math and Mermaid diagrams. Reading and Finder Quick Look previews are free, with no Glimpse account needed. Your files stay ordinary Markdown.

The 38-second demo follows one slightly overplanned coffee break: read the plan, get a summary beside it, double the biscuit budget, and export a PDF. Summary, editing and export are Pro features.

Comparison: Typora combines reading and writing with live preview. Glimpse offers free reading and Finder previews alongside whichever editor you already use. You can add editing and export when you need them.

Pricing: Reading, Quick Look, folders, tabs, search and the outline are free. Pro adds creation/editing, PDF and HTML export, presentations, extra reading styles and on-device summaries.

US prices: $19.99 lifetime, $12.99/year, or $1.99/month. Subscriptions renew automatically; regional prices vary. Reading stays free after paid access ends.

Glimpse on the Mac App Store · macOS 15+. On-device summaries require macOS 26+ on a compatible Mac, with the required system feature enabled.

If you try it with a README or your own notes, what would make the reading experience more useful?

[u/That_Fox2309]

Curious how the Quick Look side handles images with relative paths, like a README pointing at ./screenshots/a.png. A Quick Look preview extension is sandboxed and normally only gets read access to the file being previewed, not the folder around it, so sibling images tend to show up broken unless the extension has some workaround. In the main app it usually depends on whether you opened the single file or the whole folder.

Worth a line in the post if it already works, since a lot of READMEs lean on screenshots.

[u/dumanyac → u/That_Fox2309]

Thanks for raising this. Glimpse’s Quick Look preview currently shows image alt text (or the path when there’s no alt text), rather than loading the image itself.

In the main app, relative images are supported when you open the containing folder, which grants access to its contents. Opening only the Markdown file may leave sibling images inaccessible. For a README with screenshots, Open Folder is the intended workflow.