A sheet of glass over whatever you're doing, that you can write on.
A free, open source alternative to Raycast Notes for macOS.
Press ⌃⌥Space to bring a floating note over your current app and continue where you left off. Write with live Markdown formatting, switch notes with ⌘P, and dismiss the panel when you're done. Pane runs independently of Raycast, with unlimited notes and no account or subscription.
Download for macOS · Installation instructions
brew install --cask ColeMei/pane/paneOr download the .dmg from the latest release, open it,
and drag Pane.app onto the Applications folder beside it.
Important
macOS may block Pane on first launch.
Pane is not signed with an Apple Developer ID or notarized by Apple. Depending on your macOS version, Gatekeeper may report that the app is damaged or that its developer cannot be verified. If you installed Pane from this repository's releases or Homebrew cask, you can clear its quarantine flag once:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Pane.appOr skip the flag at install time:
brew install --cask --no-quarantine ColeMei/pane/panePane is built around familiar Raycast Notes habits: summon a floating note, start typing, and use keyboard shortcuts to switch notes and run actions. It is a standalone app, so Raycast is not required.
| Raycast Notes | Pane | |
|---|---|---|
| Notes | 5 on the free plan, unlimited on Pro | Unlimited |
| Where they live | Raycast's own storage | .md files in a folder you pick |
| Sync | Cloud Sync, on Pro | Sync the notes folder between Macs with iCloud Drive or a tool such as Syncthing |
| Cost | Free tier + Pro subscription | Free, MIT, no account |
| App | Part of Raycast | Standalone macOS app; no Raycast required |
Pane does not provide its own cloud service or an iPhone or iPad app. Folder sync carries your notes between Macs; local settings and window state stay on each Mac.
Raycast plan details: pricing and Raycast Notes, checked September 7, 2026.
Not affiliated with or endorsed by Raycast Technologies.
- Pick up where you left off. Summon the panel over your current app with a global hotkey. Pane remembers your last note and each note's caret position.
- Write with structure. Live Markdown keeps headings, lists and code blocks readable while you edit. Raw syntax appears on the caret's line while the rest of the note stays rendered.
- Stay in one panel.⌘P switches notes with recency groups, fuzzy title matching and full text search. No results? ⏎ creates a note with your query as its title. ⌘K brings up actions for find, export, reveal in Finder, file renaming, screen capture privacy and recently deleted notes.
- A window that follows your writing. Height grows with the note until you resize it manually. Float over fullscreen apps, follow Spaces, and choose light or dark appearance.
- Fits your routine. Access Pane from the menu bar or launch it at login.
- External edits are picked up automatically. If a file changes before Pane saves, it preserves the pending edit in a separate conflict file instead of silently overwriting the external change.
- Deleted notes are recoverable for as long as you choose, and they wait outside your vault so they don't sync back.
Notes are plain Markdown files in a folder you choose, ~/Documents/Pane by default, with no
added frontmatter or notes database. A note's title is its first line. You can edit the files in
other apps, and Pane picks up those changes automatically.
Caret positions, pins and window geometry live in ~/Library/Application Support/Pane/, outside
the vault, never synced.
File naming and sync details
While a new note is open, its filename follows the title, for example
2026-08-11-1453-first-few-words.md. Once you leave the note, automatic renaming stops; the
timestamp stays fixed. This limits filename changes that sync tools need to reconcile.
Use Rename File… in ⌘K whenever you want to rename it yourself.
To sync notes between Macs, choose a folder managed by iCloud Drive or your preferred sync tool on each Mac. Pane reads and writes the files; the tool handles transferring them. Pane normalizes trailing newlines when saving, so files are not guaranteed to be byte identical to text entered or edited elsewhere.
⌘, from any pane. Hotkey recorder, vault location, what "recent" means in the switcher,
accent, text size, translucency, and shortcut recorders for navigation and panel actions.
Additional editor shortcut overrides are available in settings.json.
It's all plain JSON in settings.json, which Pane watches and re-reads live — so editing it by
hand, over SSH, or from a dotfiles repo works immediately.
A theme is just a CSS file. Drop one in ~/Library/Application Support/Pane/Themes and it
appears in the Appearance tab. A few of Pane's own variables cover most of what people want to
change, so a usable theme can be four lines:
:root {
--font-ui:"iA Writer Quattro", Georgia, serif; /* the note's text */--font-mono:"JetBrains Mono", monospace; /* code and fences */--text-size:16px; /* also on ⌘= / ⌘− / ⌘0 */--accent:#4a7fb5; /* markers, links, the caret */
}Anything else in the file is ordinary CSS against the editor's own classes, and it wins — a theme's
body rule overrides Pane's. Themes live outside your notes folder, so they never sync with it.
Pane requests no privacy permissions at all — the global hotkey needs no Accessibility access. No telemetry, no account, no server. The only network call it ever makes is checking for a new release, and only when you press the button.
A SwiftPM package plus a web bundle. No Xcode project, on purpose — everything builds with the Command Line Tools alone.
Scripts/test.sh # the PaneKit suite — pure Foundation, runs anywhere
Scripts/test-editor.sh # the formatting commands, in a real WKWebView
Scripts/test-markdown.sh # typing markdown, and what it draws
Scripts/test-switcher.sh # the two overlays, measured as rectangles
Scripts/test-tooltip.sh # when a control names itself, and after how long
Scripts/build-app.sh --debug # assemble build/Pane.appSwift + AppKit owns the panel, hotkey and file I/O; the editor is CodeMirror 6 in a WKWebView.
No Node process, no Rust core, no Electron. The buffer is the Markdown source. Live preview
changes its presentation without converting notes to a separate rich text format.
CONTRIBUTING.md has the rest, including what Pane deliberately won't do.
MIT
Special thanks to linux.do