MD Quick Preview Support

MD Quick Preview Support

Need help setting up MD Quick Preview on your Mac? This guide covers Quick Look extension enablement, supported file types, troubleshooting duplicate extension entries, and privacy.

Product page: patakolabs.com/projects/mdquickpv

Status: v0.1 — Mac App Store submission in progress. A Developer ID–signed zip is available on patakolabs.com/projects/mdquickpv via Download zip (tracked redirect /go/mdquickpv).

What MD Quick Preview does

MD Quick Preview is a macOS Quick Look extension for Markdown files.

• Press Space in Finder on .md, .markdown, .mdown, .mkd, or .mdx files.
• See rendered HTML with GitHub-inspired light/dark styling instead of raw text.
• Use Open With → MD Quick Preview or File → Open… in the host app for a preview window.

Tagline: Quick Look extension for Markdown.

Requirements

• macOS 13 (Ventura) or later
• One-time enablement in System Settings → Quick Look Extensions

First-time setup

1. Install MD Quick Preview to /Applications (Mac App Store or signed zip from the product page).
2. Launch the app once — macOS registers the embedded Quick Look extension via PlugInKit.
3. Open System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions → Quick Look Extensions.
4. Enable MD Quick Preview.
5. Press Space on a Markdown file in Finder.

The host app shows an Extension status badge:

• Green checkmark — extension registered and enabled.
• Orange warning — enable the extension in System Settings, then tap Refresh.

Every rendered preview ends with a footer:

Rendered by MD Quick Preview · v0.1.0

If you do not see this footer when pressing Space, another Quick Look handler may take precedence, or the extension is disabled.

Supported file types

GitHub Flavored Markdown features include tables, strikethrough, and task lists (via cmark-gfm).

Open With and host-app preview

Besides Quick Look (Space), you can preview Markdown in a host-app window:

• Finder → right-click → Open With → MD Quick Preview
• In the app: File → Open… (⌘O)
• In the app: File → Open Demo Document (⇧⌘D) — bundled sample, no file picker needed
• Terminal: open -a MDQuickPV /path/to/file.md

The host app uses the same HTML pipeline as Quick Look.

Troubleshooting duplicate Quick Look entries

If System Settings lists several identical MD Quick Preview rows:

1. Quit System Settings (⌘Q).
2. From the MDQuickPV repo, run ./scripts/cleanup-extensions.sh (or reinstall with ./scripts/dev-reinstall.sh).
3. Ensure only one copy exists in /Applications/MDQuickPV.app.
4. Reopen System Settings and enable a single MD Quick Preview entry.
5. Reset Quick Look cache if previews stay stale: qlmanage -r cache && qlmanage -r

Duplicate rows usually come from old builds in Xcode DerivedData or multiple install paths registering the same bundle identifier with PlugInKit.

Another app handles my Markdown previews

Competing Quick Look extensions (for example Marked or Anybox Markdown Preview) may take precedence for certain file types. Disable or reorder extensions in System Settings, or temporarily disable the other handler to confirm MD Quick Preview is active.

Privacy

• Rendering uses cmark-gfm on your Mac — file contents are not uploaded to PatakoLabs.
• The app is App Sandbox–enabled for Mac App Store distribution.
• The host app requests user-selected read-only file access and network client (required for WKWebView helper processes when using Open With preview windows).
• Quick Look returns self-contained HTML via QLPreviewReply and does not embed WKWebView.

Distribution

Ad-hoc or unsigned builds are for local development only and are not distributed on the marketing site.

Contact

Questions or ASC/TestFlight access: contact@patakolabs.com

Bundle ID: com.patakolabs.mdquickpv