quire

quire

A plain editor for folders of Markdown files.

Quire keeps each note as a plain .md file in a folder you choose. Write in source with live highlighting, read in preview, and link notes with [[wiki links]].

Download View source

Linux desktop and Android. Open source under the MIT licence.

The Quire desktop app with a note open in source mode. The file tree is on the left. The formatting toolbar is above the highlighted Markdown text. The outline and backlinks are on the right.

See it work

This recording shows 38 seconds of the desktop app. You see a new note with a link and a tag, bold text and a list from the toolbar, and an image in the preview. Then come the quick switcher, focus mode, a dark theme, the sync settings and a locked note.

Plain files

Your notes are Markdown files in a folder on your disk. Quire opens the folder and edits the files in place.

  • Any app can open them. A text editor, grep or git sees the same files that Quire sees.
  • No database, no lock-in. There is no import step and no export step. If you stop using Quire, your notes stay where they are.
  • Use the folder you have. Open any folder of .md files, or create a new folder anywhere on your disk.
Field Notes/
├── Drafts/
│   └── On slow software.md
├── Journal/
│   ├── 2026-11-11.md
│   └── 2026-11-12.md
├── Projects/
│   └── Garden plan.md
├── Ideas.md
├── Reading list.md
└── Welcome.md
A notes folder. Each note is one file, and each folder is a folder.

Source and preview

Source mode shows your Markdown with live highlighting in a monospaced font. The syntax stays in view, so the screen always matches the file.

Preview renders the note like a page, in a serif or a sans typeface. Press Ctrl+E to switch between the two.

A toolbar above the note adds bold, italics, headings, links, lists, tasks, quotes, code and images. Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I and Ctrl+K work too. The lock button at the end of the toolbar locks a note with its own password.

Images show in the preview. Drag an image onto a note, paste one, or pick one with the image button. Quire copies it into the attachments folder and links it.

  • Task lists have checkboxes that you can tick in preview.
  • Lists continue when you press Enter.
  • Ctrl+B and Ctrl+I make text bold and italic.
A note in preview mode, set in a serif typeface with a large title, a tag and a numbered list. The same note in source mode, under the formatting toolbar. Heading marks, bold markers and list numbers show in colour next to the text. The Garden plan note in preview. A drawing of the three spring beds shows under the Spring beds heading, above the list of beds.
Ctrl+E switches the open note between source and preview.

Focus mode

Press Ctrl+. to hide the sidebar, the tabs and every other control. Quire dims all paragraphs except the one you write in.

Typewriter scrolling keeps the line you type near the middle of the screen. Press Ctrl+. again to leave focus mode.

Focus mode. Only the text of the note shows. The current line is at full strength and the other paragraphs are dimmed.

Themes and fonts

Pick a theme for light mode and a theme for dark mode. There are 14, such as White, Black, Nord, Gruvbox, Catppuccin, Tokyo Night, Rosé Pine and Solarized. Pick an accent colour too, or type any hex value. On Omarchy, your Omarchy theme is also a choice.

To see the default Paper and Ink themes, use the theme switch at the top of this page. The editor screenshots change with it.

Choose one of three monospaced fonts for the editor. Set the font size, and keep lines at a readable width or let them fill the window.

  • IBM Plex Mono Field notes
  • Courier Prime Field notes
  • Spline Sans Mono Field notes
Appearance settings. The mode switch shows Light, Dark and Match system. Below it, cards show the six light themes with Paper selected, and the first dark themes.
Appearance settings. Open them with Ctrl+,.

Works with your AI tools

Quire includes an MCP server. MCP is the Model Context Protocol. With it, AI apps such as Claude Desktop or Cursor can list, read and search the notes in a folder.

Access is read only by default. If you allow writes, an AI app can also create, change, rename and delete notes. A deleted note goes to the .trash folder inside your notes folder.

Each tool has its own switch. Hidden folders do not show up in listings or search results.

The AI app starts quire mcp itself. Put this in its MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "quire": {
      "command": "quire",
      "args": [
        "mcp",
        "--folder",
        "/path/to/notes"
      ]
    }
  }
}

While Quire is open, it serves a local endpoint on 127.0.0.1. Copy the token from the MCP settings.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "quire": {
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:3917/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

read list_notes read_note search_notes get_backlinks

write create_note update_note rename_note delete_note

MCP settings with the server switched on, the stdio transport, read-only access and a checkbox for each tool.
MCP settings: transport, access, tools and visible folders.

Sync to storage you control

Your notes stay on your device first. Quire can keep a copy in object storage that you control.

Turn on Encrypt before upload, and Quire encrypts each note with AES-256-GCM before upload. The key comes from a passphrase. The storage provider sees no note names and no note text.

Sync works the same in the desktop app and the Android app, so a note you write on your laptop opens on your phone.

storage
  • Amazon S3
  • Hetzner
  • Azure Blob Storage
  • Google Cloud Storage
  • Cloudflare R2
  • Backblaze B2
  • DigitalOcean Spaces
  • Wasabi
  • Scaleway
  • OVHcloud

Any other S3-compatible server also works, such as MinIO, Garage or Ceph.

when

On save, every 5 minutes, or manually.

conflicts

If two devices change the same note, Quire keeps both versions. The second version is a copy named <name> (conflict <device>).md.

format

The format is open and documented in SYNC.md. The desktop app and the Android app use the same format.

Sync settings with a grid of storage backends. Hetzner is selected. The region, bucket and remote folder fields for Hetzner are below the grid. The lower part of the sync settings. It shows the access keys, the endpoint, the When to sync choice and Encrypt before upload with a passphrase. Below them are the Test connection and Sync now buttons. The status is Connected. Last synced 2m ago.
Sync settings. Open settings with Ctrl+, and select Sync & backup.

Keyboard shortcuts

The desktop app uses these shortcuts. Press Ctrl+P to find a command when you forget its keys.

ActionKeys
Quick switcherCtrl+O
Command paletteCtrl+P
New noteCtrl+N
Source or previewCtrl+E
Search all notesCtrl+Shift+F
Focus modeCtrl+.
Show or hide the sidebarCtrl+\
SettingsCtrl+,
BoldCtrl+B
ItalicCtrl+I
Follow a [[link]]Ctrl-click

On your phone

The Android app is a phone version of the same editor, from the same design.

Quire on an Android phone with a note in source mode and the Markdown toolbar above the keyboard.
Source
Quire on an Android phone with the Garden plan note in preview. The note shows an image of the garden beds.
Preview
The quick switcher of Quire on an Android phone, with the notes that match the search ea.
Quick switcher

Download

Desktop

A native desktop app for Linux, macOS on Apple silicon and Windows. It draws its interface on the GPU and is written in Rust with the Rune GUI framework. The macOS and Windows builds are not tested on those systems yet.

Download for desktop

Android

A phone version of the same app, as an APK file. It needs Android 8.0 or newer.

Download the APK

Both links go to the latest release on GitHub. There is no iOS app yet.

The first screen of Quire, with the choices Create a new folder and Open a folder.
  1. Start Quire.
  2. Create a new folder, or open a folder of .md files that you already have.
  3. Press Ctrl+N to write your first note.