Markdown editor
An editor for the AI era.With AI. For AI.
Looks and types like Word or Notion — nothing to learn. With AI: the AI works at your cursor, and whatever it changes waits as tracked changes on your own text until you accept it. For AI: every note is saved as plain Markdown, the format AI models read and write natively — so an answer from ChatGPT pastes in with its headings and tables intact, and your notes are ready context for any AI tool you use, not only ours.
- Files
- Plain Markdown, in your folder
- Opens
- An existing vault, in place
- Exports
- Word · PDF · images
- Runs on
- macOS (Apple silicon) · Windows
- Price
- Free app · AI plans from $10/mo, or your own key
- AI
- Included, or your own API key
Written like a document, saved as Markdown
The parts of a plain-text editor that usually make you reach for a different app are the ones that work here — and when someone needs a file, the note leaves as Word or PDF laid out the way you see it.
- Everything you would format in Word, and the blocks you would reach for in Notion: headings, lists and to-dos, tables, equations, code, quotes, callouts, Mermaid flowcharts — even infographics. Pick them from the / menu; the file still holds plain-text Markdown.
- Tables you edit as tables: drag a column wider, drag rows and columns to reorder, sort by a column, paste a block straight from Excel or Google Sheets and it lands cell by cell. The file still holds an ordinary pipe table.
- Math and Mermaid diagrams render in a preview beside you while you type the source — no clicking out of the block to see whether it worked.
- Paste from a web page or an email and it arrives as clean Markdown — headings, lists, links and tables kept. Anything that will not convert cleanly comes in as plain text, never as broken structure.
You call it where you are
If you have used Notion's inline AI, this is that — on files you own, with edits you review.
- Select a sentence, paragraph or section and say what to do: tighten it, expand it, change the tone, fix the grammar, translate it.
- Or call it with nothing selected: continue where you stopped, draft the section under the heading you just typed, or sketch an outline from where you left off.
- Say it in your own words when none of the menu items fits. The surrounding document goes with the instruction, so the rewrite fits what comes before and after — and it comes back as a tracked change you accept or reject as a whole.
- For a whole chapter, do not select it all: describe the change or leave comments, and the revision comes back as many small changes instead of one too big to review.
Every version kept — yours and the AI's
Accepting a change should not be a one-way door. Whatever happened to a note, the version before it is still there.
- It records as you go, with nothing to set up — and it keeps to itself, so it does not touch any Git repository or sync service you already use on the folder.
- Your own typing is gathered into one version every few minutes. Every change the AI writes gets a version of its own, marked as the AI’s, so “how it read before the AI touched it” is always one click away.
- Open any earlier version against the current one, with the differences marked up the same way AI edits are, and restore it. Only that note goes back; nothing else in the folder moves.
Not only prose
Half of tidying a note is changing its shape, not its words.
- Turn a paragraph into a list, a table or a heading structure — or have the AI reformat a messy note into ordinary Markdown.
- Ask for a flowchart, a quadrant chart or an infographic and it is drawn right inside the note, as Mermaid or SVG you can keep editing rather than a picture you cannot.
Everything else you would expect
All of this works with the AI switched off entirely — which is the point. An editor you would only tolerate for the sake of its AI is not one you will still be using in a year.
[[Links]] and backlinks
The linked-notes workflow Obsidian users already have. Each note shows what links to it and what it links out to, so structure accumulates from writing rather than from filing.
Properties, not raw YAML
Front matter shows as editable fields — text, lists, numbers, checkboxes, dates — and is saved back as the same YAML other tools read.
Word, PDF or images to hand over
When someone needs a file rather than your Markdown, export the note as a .docx, a PDF, or a set of image cards for posting — laid out the way the editor shows it, with equations still editable in Word.
How export works →Lists that behave
Wrapped lines hang under their bullet, long branches fold away, and Enter on an empty item steps out a level instead of leaving a stray dash.
Slash commands and block handles
Press / for headings, to-dos, tables, callouts, code, math or a diagram. Drag any block by its handle, or open its menu.
Daily notes, search, command palette
Plus an outline of the note you are in, and full-text search across the whole folder that reaches into your documents as well as your notes.
Standard Markdown
Follows CommonMark and GitHub-flavoured Markdown, so headings, lists, tables and code blocks mean the same thing in any other editor that opens the file.
No database
Close MindMax, open the same folder in any other Markdown editor — including the one you use now — and it reads the same. An existing vault opens in place.
Coming from a notes app: what changes, what stays
Most people who land here already keep notes somewhere, often with an AI plugin on top. Here is what moving that work here changes — including the rows where your current setup wins. You can also keep both, on the same folder.
| Topic | A notes app + AI pluginThe setup most people arrive with | In MindMax |
|---|---|---|
| Your notes | Markdown files in a folder or vault. | The same folder, opened in place. Nothing imported, nothing converted. |
| Links and properties | [[Links]], backlinks, front matter. | Kept as they are. Front matter shows as editable fields and is saved back as the same YAML. |
| AI while you write | Whichever plugin you install and configure, with its own key and its own way of writing back. | Built in, at the cursor. Every rewrite waits on your text as a tracked change you accept or reject. |
| Going back | Undo, plus whatever history your sync service or Git keeps. | A version history for every note, with the AI’s changes marked as its own. |
| The sources you write from | Often read in a separate app, or uploaded to a chat window. | In the same folder: PDFs and books read, annotated and asked about beside your notes, with quotes that open on the page. |
| Handing it in | Usually PDF built in; a Word file that keeps the layout often means a plugin or Pandoc. | Word, PDF and images built in, laid out the way the editor shows it — equations arrive in Word as equations you can edit. |
| Community plugins | Years of them. | Not loaded here. They keep working in the app you use now, on the same folder. |
| Phone and web | Often available. | Desktop only — macOS and Windows. Your sync service carries the files to your other devices. |
One part of a loop: read, think, write
Your notes, and the two hundred PDFs you read to write them, sit in one folder — where a single AI works across both. Tools you would otherwise stitch together each hold one half of that.
- ReadThe PDFs and books you write from sit in the same folder. Ask about them from inside a note and the answer comes back with quotes that open on the page.
- ThinkWork an idea out on a canvas first, then bring a branch over as an outline or a Markdown note.
- WriteThis pageDraft, tidy and revise here, in plain Markdown — with the AI’s edits marked on your text until you accept them.
Where it gets hard
- One person, on the desktop
macOS and Windows, no mobile or web version, no multiplayer cursor.
- Not a decade of community plugins
A mature notes app has years of third-party extensions behind it and this does not. If your daily workflow leans on particular community plugins, check that you can do without them before you move anything.
- No cloud storage or sync of our own
Your notes live in a folder on your computer and nowhere else — we do not store your files or sync them between devices. To have them on your phone or another computer, put the folder in a sync service you already use.
Common questions
Do I need to know Markdown?
No. Markdown is a plain-text format for notes — a # in front of a line makes it a heading — and MindMax writes it for you as you use the menu and toolbar. What you get from it is that your notes are ordinary files: any other app can open them, and they outlive any one tool, MindMax included.
Can I open an existing Obsidian vault?
Yes, in place — no import, no conversion, no second copy of your notes to keep in sync. Your front matter shows up as editable properties, and [[links]] keep working.
If I resize a table column, will other Markdown editors break?
No. The table itself stays an ordinary pipe table. The widths are kept in one invisible comment line just above it, which other editors skip over.
What happens to my notes if I stop using MindMax?
Nothing needs exporting — they are already Markdown files in your folder. Tables stay pipe tables, properties stay YAML, and every AI edit you accepted is plain text. Canvases are JSON Canvas files, the open format other canvas tools read, though branching and follow-up only work here. MindMax’s own data — version history and search index — sits in a .mindmax folder you can delete.
Can I go back to an earlier version of a note?
Yes. MindMax keeps a history of every note it has written to — your own edits and every change you accepted from the AI — and you can compare any earlier version against the current one and restore it.
See also
Every AI edit, at the cursor or across the whole draft, marked on your text until you accept it.
Describe the change or mark up the draft; it plans the revision and carries it out.
Headings, tables, code, diagrams and equations leave laid out the way the editor showed them.
Say a thought or type half a line, and it is corrected and filed into the note you have open, as a change you accept.
Parts, chapters, an argument ledger, and an outline you approve first.
Where the material comes from before you write anything.
Point it at the notes folder you already have.
Nothing is imported and nothing is converted. If it does not earn its place, your notes are exactly where they were.
Notion and Obsidian are trademarks of their respective owners, used here for identification only. MindMax is not affiliated with either.