kayet

Just you and your text.

A quiet, distraction-free text editor for macOS.
Built with Rust. Instant to start. Tiny on disk.

Download for Mac View source

notes.md

# Morning pages

The window is empty except for the words. No toolbars, no panels asking for attention.

Move the mouse to the top edge and the controls appear. Move away and they fade out again

Everything else waits quietly until you reach for it.

Chrome appears only when you reach for it — then fades away.

Less, on purpose.

Hidden chrome

The title bar, traffic lights and controls stay out of sight until your cursor reaches the top of the window.

Zen mode

Keep the current line centered and dim everything but the paragraph you are writing.

Live Markdown preview

A split pane that renders CommonMark and GitHub tables, task lists and strikethrough as you type.

Workspace tree

Browse a folder of notes in an optional file tree. Hidden by default, one shortcut away.

Tabs, only when needed

Open a second document and a tab strip quietly takes the place of the title. Each tab keeps its own history, selection and scroll, and they come back on launch.

Find anything

Jump to any file with ⌘P, search the whole workspace with ⌘⇧F, or find and replace in a slim bar at the bottom of the editor.

Export to HTML & PDF

Turn a Markdown document into a self-contained web page or a paginated PDF with the same typography as the preview. Images included.

Markdown that keeps up

Lists continue on Enter, ⌘B and ⌘I toggle emphasis, a pasted URL over text becomes a link and pasted images are saved next to the file.

Never lose a word

Unsaved changes in every tab are backed up as you type. If kayet ever quits unexpectedly, it offers to restore them on the next launch.

Spell check

Optional native spelling underlines for prose — Markdown and plain text, never code. No autocorrect rewriting your words.

Light & dark

Follows your system appearance, or pick a theme yourself. Soft neutrals, crisp type, nothing loud.

Native & fast

Rust and Tauri under the hood. Starts instantly and stays small — built for Apple Silicon.

Every command, one keystroke away.

Press ⌘K or click the ⌘ icon in the title bar. Type a few letters, hit Enter.

Fuzzy search. Matches substrings and letters in order, so a couple of keystrokes find any command.

Learn as you go. Every command shows its shortcut, so the palette doubles as a cheat sheet.

Only what applies. Context commands like preview, syntax highlighting or Close File appear only when they make sense.

Hands on the keyboard.

Command palette: ⌘K
New tab: ⌘T
Next / previous tab: ⌘⇧]/[
Go to file: ⌘P
Find / replace: ⌘F/⌘R
Find in workspace: ⌘⇧F
Toggle zen mode: ⌘⇧J
Toggle file tree: ⌘\
Toggle preview: ⌘⇧P
Cycle theme: ⌘⇧L
Open workspace: ⌘⇧O
Show chrome: ⌘.
Close file: ⌘W

Tuned in plain text.

Every setting lives in one TOML file. No preferences window, no hidden state.

~/.kayet/config.toml

[workspace]
path = "~/.kayet/workspace"  # folder shown in the file tree
show_hidden_files = false    # list dotfiles in the tree

[ui]
theme = "system"             # "system" | "light" | "dark"
sidebar_visible = false      # file tree shown on launch
titlebar_pinned = false      # keep the title bar visible
zen_mode = false             # centered cursor, dimmed paragraphs
sidebar_width = 240          # 180–400 px
preview_split = 0.5          # editor share of the split, 0.2–0.8
open_in_new_tab = false      # open files in a new tab

[editor]
font_family = "mono"         # "mono" | "system"
font_size = 15               # px
line_height = 1.6
soft_wrap = true
max_line_width = 72          # readable column, in characters
autosave = false             # save after 1s of inactivity
syntax_highlighting = true   # code and data/config files
cursor = "blink"             # "blink" | "steady"
spell_check = false          # prose files

[window]
width = 1000
height = 700
x = 0                        # 0, 0 = centered
y = 0

Created on first launch. Missing keys are filled in with their defaults and written back, so the file always lists every option.

Remembers your layout. Theme, file tree, zen mode, split sizes, window position, open tabs and recent files are saved as you use the app.

Edit it in kayet. Open it with ⌘, or the sliders icon — changes apply as soon as you save. A file that fails to parse is left untouched and defaults are used.

Start writing.

Free and open source. Requires macOS on Apple Silicon.

Download kayet.dmg

Signed and notarized. Release notes & previous versions.

Support & consulting.

kayet is free and open source under the Apache License 2.0, commercial use included.
No paid tiers, no feature gating, no telemetry.

If you or your team need help with any of the following, get in touch at [email protected].

Custom features & integrations — editor features, file formats, workflows or a tailored build of kayet for your team.
Desktop app development — native macOS and cross-platform apps with Rust, Tauri and web frontends.
Rust development — command-line tools, developer tooling and backend services.
Java, Kotlin & Android development — backend services, libraries and apps, code reviews and architecture.
Support contracts — prioritized bug fixes and support for teams using kayet.

Email [email protected]