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A tiny, beautiful text editor for macOS.
~ — home, plain text, and nothing more than you need.
What is Tilde?
The way software is built has changed. With AI-assisted development, you read and edit code by hand far less often — so reaching for a full IDE just to glance at a single .txt or .md file feels like too much.
Tilde fills that gap. It's an ultra-lightweight text editor for macOS built around one idea: open the file, read it, maybe change a line, and close it. No projects, no workspaces, no plugins, no terminals, no sidebars.
The goal isn't a smaller IDE. The goal is for the editor to disappear so the content is all that's left.
Core Values
- Instant — Double-click a file and it opens almost immediately.
- Quiet — The interface never draws more attention than the content.
- Native — It behaves like a built-in macOS app.
- Beautiful — Reading text is a pleasure in itself.
- Disposable — There is almost nothing to configure or manage.
Who it's for
Tilde is for people who want to quickly read or lightly edit plain-text files:
- Developers who work with AI and spend less time in code editors
- People who frequently read Markdown documents
- Anyone who wants to inspect a README, note, or config file without launching a heavy editor
It is not an IDE, a project workspace, a note database, or a Markdown authoring suite. If you need Git integration, plugins, or multi-file navigation, Tilde is intentionally the wrong tool.
Features
- Native macOS document-based app (one file → one window)
- Open, edit, and save
.txt, .md, and .markdown files
- Opens most UTF-based plain-text files (
.json, .yaml, .toml, .xml, .csv, .log, .env, and more) as plain text, including files with no extension or an unfamiliar one, like Dockerfile or SSH keys (id_ed25519, id_ed25519.pub)
- Lightweight Markdown styling that keeps syntax visible while improving readability
- Reader mode (
⌘⇧R) — a fully rendered, read-only view of a Markdown document, with tables, highlighted code blocks, task-list checkboxes (copied as ☐ / ☑︎ in plain text), and YAML frontmatter as a quiet header (title: on top, the other keys as rows); #fragment links jump within the document and web links open in your browser. Links and images pointing at neighboring local files work when macOS grants file access — the App Sandbox can block files that live next to the document (a blocked image shows its alt text; a blocked link does nothing). Toggle it from the title bar, just like Safari's Reader
- Quiet syntax highlighting for config files: keys tinted in
.json, .yaml, and .toml, everything else left alone
- Standard editing: undo/redo, cut/copy/paste, drag-and-drop, spell check, Find & Replace
- Tab follows the file's indentation: spaces at the file's own width, or a tab (YAML always gets spaces); with lines selected,
Tab and ⇧Tab indent and outdent them
- Invisible characters get a faint mark: zero-width spaces, bidirectional controls, no-break and full-width spaces, and control codes (shown as
␀, ␛)
- Word wrap (on by default) and optional line numbers
- Light / Dark / System appearance using macOS semantic colors
- Interface in English, Korean, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese, following your macOS language
- Fast launch and near-zero idle resource usage
- Full macOS integration: Open With, file associations, Recent Documents, Autosave, Versions, Full Screen, window tabs
- In-app updates for the GitHub and Homebrew version: Tilde → Check for Updates… checks only when you ask (the App Store version is updated by the App Store)
Markdown, done lightly
For Markdown files, Tilde applies gentle semantic styling. A heading's # stays visible while the text renders slightly larger; **bold** keeps its markers while the enclosed text can render in bold. The aim is not to hide Markdown, but to make it easier to read.
Styled elements: headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, inline code, code blocks, blockquotes, links, bullet lists, numbered lists, task lists, and horizontal rules. A leading YAML frontmatter block stays dim and plain, with no Markdown styling inside.
⌘-click a link to follow it the way Reader does: #fragment links scroll to the heading, links to local files open them in their own window when macOS grants access, and web links open in your browser.
Format ▸ Bold (⌘B), Italic (⌘I), and Add Link… (⌘K) wrap the selection in Markdown markers, and ⌘K uses a URL on the clipboard as the link. Typing *, _, `, ~, [, (, or " over a selection wraps it instead of replacing it.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Tilde follows macOS conventions.
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|
| New | ⌘N |
| Open | ⌘O |
| Save | ⌘S |
| Save As | ⌘⇧S |
| Close | ⌘W |
| Find | ⌘F |
| Find Next | ⌘G |
| Find Previous | ⌘⇧G |
| Find & Replace | ⌥⌘F |
| Reader | ⌘⇧R |
| Bold (Markdown) | ⌘B |
| Italic (Markdown) | ⌘I |
| Add Link (Markdown) | ⌘K |
| Indent / Outdent | Tab / ⇧Tab |
| Follow link (Markdown) | ⌘-click |
| Preferences | ⌘, |
| Increase Font | ⌘+ |
| Decrease Font | ⌘- |
| Reset Font | ⌘0 |
Privacy
Tilde processes every document locally.
- No server uploads
- No account or sign-in
- No cloud storage
- No AI features
- No analytics in the initial release
- No network access, except an update check when you choose Check for Updates… (GitHub and Homebrew version)
Full policy: PRIVACY.md
Building
Tilde is built with Swift, SwiftUI, and AppKit, using SwiftUI as the primary technology and wrapping NSTextView where a mature text engine is needed.
Requirements:
To build and run:
open Tilde.xcodeproj
Then build and run from Xcode (⌘R).
This builds the App Store flavor, without the updater. The GitHub/Homebrew build adds Sparkle through scripts/build_direct.sh; see docs/RELEASING.md.
Non-Goals
Tilde deliberately leaves out anything that would turn it back into a full IDE:
- Terminal, Git, debugger, build/run, LSP, IntelliSense, refactoring, project explorer
- Extensions, plugins, marketplaces
- Note databases, tags, backlinks, vaults, wikis, sync
- Accounts, comments, shared workspaces, real-time collaboration
- AI completion, chat, rewrite, or agents
For the full product thinking behind these decisions, see docs/PRODUCT.md.
License
Tilde is released under the MIT License.
Just open the file.
