A clean page, one keystroke away.

Wisp is a macOS scratchpad. Press ⌥Space anywhere and a glass panel slides in. Type. Hit Esc. It's gone — but your text stays, as plain markdown on disk.

Download for macOS Latest release View source

Requires macOS 13 (Ventura) or later, Apple silicon. Free and open source.

Everything you need.
Nothing you don't.

One keystroke

⌥Space anywhere on macOS summons the panel. Rebindable to any combo. Esc dismisses and returns focus to where you were.

Plain markdown

Your text lives at ~/Library/Application Support/Wisp/scratchpad.md. Open it in any editor. Pipe it through anything. It's just a file.

Sync across Macs

Point Wisp at any folder — iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Syncthing — and your scratchpad follows you to every Mac you own. macOS handles the sync.

Smart editing

Lists auto-continue. --- becomes a full-width divider. **bold** renders inline. Headings get a jump-bar at the top. :rocket: becomes 🚀.

Light, dark, system

Six preinstalled serifs and sans. Three text sizes. Theme follows your OS by default, or pin it to light or dark.

Quiet at login

Launch at Login starts Wisp silently in the menu bar — ready for ⌥Space the moment you need it. In-app auto-update handles new versions.

The Wisp panel open on a macOS desktop
One file. One page. No folders, no accounts, no clutter.

Install in one line.

Homebrew

brew tap sulemaanhamza/wisp
brew install --cask wisp
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Wisp.app

The xattr line tells macOS the app is safe to open (Wisp is unsigned — no Apple Developer ID).

Direct download

Grab the latest zip from Releases, unzip, drag Wisp.app to /Applications, then: 

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Wisp.app

That's it — ⌥Space anywhere and Wisp slides in.

Free. Forever.

$0 No subscription, no paid tier, no upsell.
MIT Open source. Read every line. Fork it. Ship it.
0 trackers No analytics, no telemetry, no account, no email.
1 file Your text lives in one markdown file. You own it.

Try it now.

The download is under 5 MB. You'll know within thirty seconds if Wisp is for you.

Download for macOS

macOS 13 Ventura+, Apple silicon