Everything mote does, on one page.

mote is small enough that its manual fits here. Ten minutes covers all of it.

Install

The Linux .deb is not published yet; it will ship on GitHub Releases with SHA256SUMS, and signing follows per platform. Get notified when it is out.

Your first file

mote opens files, not a library. Use ⌘O to open a file, or drop a .md file onto the window. Files open in Live view by default; the sidebar (⌘⇧E) lists whatever folder the file lives in.

Saving is ⌘S. Autosave is on by default and writes one second after you stop typing; the status bar shows exactly how many bytes changed. Turn it off in Settings → General.

Live, Source, Read

The switcher in the header, or ⌘1 ⌘2 ⌘3, changes how the same file is shown. Nothing about the file changes.

• Live renders formatting in place. The Markdown behind a word shows only while the caret is on it; a heading's or quote's marker shows while the caret is on that line, and a list bullet only while the caret is on the bullet itself. Move the caret away and they render again. Select several lines to see all of their markers. Enter starts a new paragraph, continues a list, and steps numbered lists.
• Source is the file as it exists on disk, in a monospace editor. This is the view to trust when precision matters.
• Read is the finished document. Nothing is editable; links open.

Cursor position and scroll offset carry across views.

Markdown support

mote follows CommonMark 0.31 and GitHub Flavored Markdown. Anything the spec renders, mote renders. Anything it does not recognize is left exactly as written.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcuts are shown with ⌘; on Linux and Windows that key is Ctrl.

Focus & outline

Focus mode (F8) hides every control and leaves the page. Move the pointer to the top edge to reveal the header; Esc exits. The Outline tab in the sidebar lists headings; click one to jump. Word count and estimated reading time live in the status bar.

Export

Export, from the menu or the command palette, produces PDF (with the Read view's typography, paginated) and HTML (self-contained, no scripts). Export never touches the source file.

File integrity

mote edits the source text directly. There is no intermediate model that is serialized back on save. In practice that means:

• Line endings (LF or CRLF) and the trailing newline are preserved as found.
• Indentation, table alignment, and hand-spaced list markers are untouched unless you edit that line.
• Frontmatter, HTML comments, and unknown syntax pass through byte for byte.
• Files are read and written as the bytes they are — UTF-8 with or without BOM — and never re-encoded.

If a file changes on disk while open, mote reloads it when you have no unsaved edits, and asks otherwise.

Folders & sync

Open a file and the Files tab in the sidebar (⌘⇧E) shows the folder it lives in. mote reads the folder; it does not index, cache, or write anything into it. There is no .mote/ directory. That is what lets iCloud Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Syncthing, and Git work without special handling.

Trial

During the beta there is no trial timer. The first launch starts a 14-day trial with every feature enabled. The remaining days appear quietly in the header. Two days before the end, a dismissible notice appears. After the trial, mote becomes read-only: files open, search and outline work, export works. Editing, new files, and replace are locked until a key is entered.

Activate a key

Your key looks like MOTE-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX and arrives by email after purchase. Click the trial indicator in the header (or mote → License…), paste the key, and press Activate. Activation makes one request to the license server and stores the result locally; no other network calls are made. Offline activation is available on request for air-gapped machines.

Manage devices

A personal license activates three devices at a time. To move to a new machine, choose mote → License → Deactivate this device on the old one. If the old machine is gone, support can release the slot with your order number.