Notepad, with Markdown.

A fast, native Markdown scratchpad for Windows. Your notes are plain .md files in a folder you own; headings, lists and links take shape as you type, and every note saves itself.

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The Scratchpad window: the note list grouped by date on the left, and a note on the right whose headings, bold and italic text, task boxes, bullets, quote and code block are styled as it is typed. — Light or dark, following your Windows setting.

Everything you reach for in Notepad, and then some

Live preview

Headings, emphasis, lists, task boxes, links and code are styled as you write. Markdown markers show only where the caret is; Ctrl+/ shows them all.

Saves itself

Every note is saved a moment after you pause, at least every two seconds while you type, and whenever you switch notes or apps. Ctrl+S still works.

Crash recovery

Unsaved text is snapshotted while you type and offered back after a crash. If another program changes a note you are editing, you choose which version to keep.

Search every note

Ctrl+Shift+F searches the text of all your notes. A thousand notes take a few milliseconds once warm.

Find, replace, go to line

Ctrl+F and Ctrl+H in the note, with match case and replace all. Ctrl+G jumps to a line.

Notepad habits

File, Edit and View menus, a status bar, word wrap with a horizontal scrollbar, pinned notes, zoom from 50% to 400%, a source mode, and the Windows editing keys you already know.

Opens any text file

Ctrl+O edits a file where it lives. .txt and other non-Markdown files open as plain text; Save As writes a copy and carries on there.

Markdown shortcuts

Bold, italic and links on Ctrl+B / I / K. Lists and quotes continue on Enter; Tab nests a list item. A third backtick opens a code block and closes it for you.

Close-up of a note with the caret inside a bold word: only that word's ** markers are shown, while the italic text beside it stays styled without its markers. — Markers appear only where the caret is.

Find and replace: the find bar at the top right with "the" found 1 of 5 times and every match highlighted in the note. — Find and replace, Notepad keys included.

Scratchpad in a narrow window, with the note list collapsed so the note fills the window. — In a narrow window the note list folds away.

Your notes are just files

Press Ctrl+N and type. The first line is the title and becomes the file name.
Keep them anywhere. Notes live in Documents\Scratchpad unless you pick another folder in Settings.
Edit them with anything. Git, a sync client or another editor can change them; Scratchpad reloads a note, and never silently overwrites changes it did not make.
Delete without fear. Scratchpad asks first, then moves the note to the Recycle Bin.

Under the hood

Native, no browser. Rust and GPUI, drawn on the GPU. A 7.8 MB executable and a 2.5 MB installer.
Rope buffer. A keystroke in a 10 MB note takes microseconds, undo included.
Incremental Markdown parsing. An edit re-parses only the blocks around it.
Virtualised rendering. Only visible lines are laid out, so text appears about 4.5 ms after a keystroke (median), even in a 10 MB note.
Atomic saves. Each save writes a temporary file, flushes it and renames it over the note, so a crash never leaves a half-written file.
Tested and written down. Over 600 automated tests, including end-to-end tests that drive the real UI headlessly, and 66 decision records explaining why it works the way it does.

Get Scratchpad

# Build and run from source
> git clone https://github.com/waterrmalann/scratchpad.git
> cd scratchpad
> cargo build --release -p scratchpad
> .\target\release\scratchpad.exe

# Or build the installer (needs the .NET SDK)
> powershell -File packaging/build-installer.ps1

Requires Windows 10 or 11, the Rust toolchain (MSVC) and the Windows SDK. The MSI installs for your user only, without administrator rights, and uninstalling leaves your notes and settings alone. There is no prebuilt download yet.