Local-First Markdown Editor:
Your .md Files Stay Local, Never in the Cloud

What "local" really means: where the files live

Here, "local" means your .md files live in some folder on your own disk, and both reading and writing happen without going through anyone else's server. NoteLoom's approach: after you open the web page, it has you pick a local folder, and from then on all reading and writing lands in that folder. It sticks to three rules:

• Files live in the local folder you chose, not in a NoteLoom database.
• Every keystroke is written back to that .md source file in real time.
• The .md files are never uploaded to a NoteLoom server, and reading and writing work fine offline.

One exception is worth naming. NoteLoom also has an AI chat panel, and it is the only place where your note text leaves your computer. It sends nothing until you open that panel and type a message. When you do, your message and whatever note text the model reads are sent to the model: the built-in free model runs through chat.noteloom.cc, or you can enter your own DeepSeek or Zhipu GLM key and talk to those providers directly. The .md files themselves are never uploaded either way.

Real local files, still there after you close the browser

What you write is standard .md, not some private NoteLoom format. Close the browser, shut down the computer, go fully offline. The files are still in their original folder.

And the day you decide to stop using NoteLoom, VS Code, Notepad, or any other Markdown editor can open the same file and keep editing, with no export and no conversion needed.

Whether you then put the files into iCloud, Dropbox, or Git is up to you. They stay plain .md in the folder you chose, readable by anything that reads text.

Source mode, Edit mode, and Reading view: three ways to look at it

The same .md file, three ways to view it in NoteLoom, switchable anytime:

If you first ran into .md through ChatGPT, Claude, or Kimi, you can start with reading to get through the document smoothly, then switch to one of the other two views when you want to edit. These three views are just three ways of looking at the same file; no automatic generation is involved.

No software to install, it works offline, and your .md files are never uploaded

Open the web page, pick a folder, start reading and writing. No installer to download, no account to register. On that point it's no different from "open it in your browser and go."

But this page is about the other side: even as a web app, your .md files are never uploaded to a server; the whole time they stay in the local folder you chose. If you want to look at it from the "online, open-in-browser, nothing to install" angle, read NoteLoom's online Markdown editor page; here we focus only on the "files stay local, never in the cloud" side.

Local-first vs. cloud notes vs. plain text editor: where they differ

If you're torn between a local editor, a cloud note app, and a plain text editor, four things are all you need to look at: where the files live, whether you have to install anything, whether you have to register, and whether you can open the same file in a different editor.

A plain text editor can open .md, but it only shows the symbols and no formatting; cloud notes look nicely formatted, but the files live on someone else's server and are often in a proprietary format, so you have to export or convert before switching tools. Local-first tries to give you both: the files stay with you, and you can still see the formatting.

Reading and writing local md with NoteLoom in 4 steps

You don't have to learn all of Markdown syntax first to get started; just follow this order:

1. Open NoteLoom (right in your browser, nothing to install).
2. Pick a local folder that holds .md files.
3. Click open a file in the file tree and read through it in Reading view first.
4. To edit, switch to Edit mode and Source mode; your changes are written back to the original file in real time.

Once you've read through smoothly, there's still plenty of time to gradually learn symbols like #, ##, -, and **text**.

What NoteLoom handles, and what stays with you

So you know what you are getting before you click through:

• The writing is yours. NoteLoom opens the file, renders it, and saves it back; what goes into it and how it reads stay with you.
• One person, one folder. It works on the folder you point it at, on the machine you are on. Passing a draft around is what your usual sharing tools are for.
• The files stay on your disk, in the folder you opened, and they are still there after you close the tab.
• Browsers: desktop Chrome, Edge, and Arc.

It's simply an editor focused on reading and writing local .md files: open the files you already have, read them clearly, edit them well, and keep them local.