free & open source · windows & mac
write like it’s just
you and the words.
lwriter is a calm, distraction-free markdown writing app. no accounts, no cloud, no toolbars — your words, in plain files on your own disk, beautifully typeset.
MIT licensed · ~2 MB installer · no telemetry, ever
features
everything you need.
nothing you don’t.
markdown, styled live
headings, bold, italic, code and quotes take shape as you type — syntax characters fade to a whisper, like iA Writer.
typewriter mode
the line you’re writing stays vertically centered, so your eyes never chase the caret down the page. CtrlT
focus mode
everything but the paragraph you’re on dims away. one thought at a time. CtrlShiftF
your files, in folders
notes are plain .md files in your Documents folder. rename, move, archive and organize them from the built-in sidebar.
obsidian-friendly
link a vault and edit it in place — nested folders, wiki-style image embeds, nothing converted, nothing locked in. swap apps freely.
images that behave
paste a screenshot and it’s saved right next to your note and embedded as ![[image]] — the way Obsidian does it.
find & replace
a quiet floating find bar with live highlights, match cycling and one-undo replace-all. CtrlF
preview & export
flip to a serif reading view with CtrlE, or export a standalone, self-contained HTML page — images embedded.
light & dark, live
follows your Windows theme the moment it changes — or pin whichever side you like. CtrlShiftL
type in your type
JetBrains Mono and iA Writer Quattro come bundled; Georgia and Times are a click away — or load any font file you own.
small & fast
a native Rust app, not a bundled browser. the installer is about 2 MB and it opens before your coffee lands.
private by default
no account. no sync servers. no analytics. your writing never leaves your machine unless you take it somewhere.
typewriter · focus
modes that hold
your attention
typewriter mode keeps the current line pinned to the center of the screen, the way paper rolled up to meet the keys. focus mode dims every paragraph but the one you’re shaping.
turn them both on and the whole app disappears into the sentence you’re writing — even the title and status bars fade out while you type, and drift back when you reach for the mouse.
the first draft is just you telling
yourself the story. nobody else
needs to see it, so let it be loose,
let it wander, let it be wrong in
interesting ways. tidy later.
tonight, just get it down.
notes · vaults
your vault, exactly
as you left it
link any folder — including an Obsidian vault — and lwriter shows it as a real tree: years, months, projects, all as collapsible sections that remember how you left them.
files are edited in place on disk, never imported, never converted. open the same vault in Obsidian tomorrow and it won’t know you were gone.
images
pictures live
next to the words
paste an image and lwriter quietly saves it beside your note — no attachments folder to configure, no database swallowing your files. the note stays a plain text file you could open anywhere.
hit CtrlE and the embed becomes the picture, in a calm serif reading view. export to HTML and it travels inside the file.
![[golden hour.png]]
rendered in preview — stored beside the note
keyboard first
your hands never
leave the keys
calm by design
“the empty state is a single muted line: start writing. no onboarding. no tour. unsaved work is a quiet — edited beside the filename, never a pop-up. the interface fades while you type and returns when you reach for it. word count is the only number that matters, so it’s the one you see.”
— from the lwriter design spec
get lwriter
ready when you are.
the polish of a boutique writing app, without the price tag.
free forever, open source under MIT, built in Rust.
apple silicon · macOS 12+
drag to Applications, then right-click → Open
builds from source in minutes
with cargo & the tauri cli
not ready to install? try the editor in your browser first.
both builds are unsigned for now — windows SmartScreen and mac Gatekeeper may ask you to confirm.
every release is reproducible from the source.