MarkItDown Desktop (Unofficial)

A native PySide6 desktop GUI around Microsoft's markitdown Python package. The core flow is intentionally simple: drop a file (or paste a URL) and it converts and saves itself to your Downloads folder automatically — no manual "export" step required.

Important

This app converts files with the privileges of the account running it, the same way markitdown itself does. Only convert files and URLs you trust. See SECURITY.md for the full policy.

This is an independent, community-built GUI. It is not developed, maintained, or endorsed by Microsoft. See Credits & License below.

🌐 Website · ⬇️ Download for Windows (.exe) · Latest release

Features

• Drag-and-drop of files/folders (recursive) onto a big, centered drop zone, click-to-browse on that same zone, "Add files" / "Add folder" buttons, and a URL field (webpage or YouTube link) — any of these starts conversion immediately, no separate "Convert" click needed.
• Auto-save to Downloads: as soon as an item finishes converting, the resulting .md file is written straight to Path.home() / "Downloads" (resolved generically, so it works on any account) using the original file's name. If a same-named file already exists there, a numeric suffix is appended (document (1).md, document (2).md, ...) so nothing gets overwritten. The queue row shows "Done — Saved to Downloads"; double-click a done row to open its containing folder.
• Queue table with per-item status (Pending / Converting / Done / Error), multi-select, remove, and clear-all. The drop zone is dominant while the queue is empty and shrinks to a slim bar once items are added, so the table takes over. A subtle hover glow animation highlights the drop zone.
• Runs on a background QThreadPool so the UI never freezes; per-item errors are caught and shown without stopping the batch. A progress bar only appears while a batch is actively converting, and disappears when idle.
• Rendered (HTML via the markdown package) and Raw (editable) preview tabs. "Save a copy as..." / "Export all to..." buttons remain available as an optional way to also save elsewhere — auto-save to Downloads always happens regardless.
• Advanced/optional settings (markitdown's enable_plugins, keep_data_uris, Azure Document Intelligence docintel_endpoint, Azure Content Understanding cu_endpoint/cu_analyzer_id, and per-item extension/mimetype/charset StreamInfo hints) live in a secondary Edit > Advanced Settings... dialog, out of the way of the main drop-and-done flow.
• Light/dark QSS themes, with "follow system" or manual toggle, persisted via QSettings (window geometry, last export folder, theme choice).
• English/Spanish (neutral) UI via a lightweight, dependency-free translation layer (app/i18n.py — no Qt Linguist .ts/.qm build step). Defaults to your system locale (Spanish for es_*, English otherwise) and can be switched anytime with the language dropdown next to the menu bar; the choice is remembered via QSettings and switching updates the whole UI, including already-queued rows, immediately — no restart needed.

Supported input formats

Anything markitdown supports: PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images (EXIF

• optional OCR), audio (transcription), HTML, CSV, JSON, XML, ZIP archives, EPub, plain text, and YouTube / general web URLs. See the markitdown README for the full, up-to-date list.

Download a pre-built binary (no Python required)

• Windows — Installer (recommended: Start Menu + uninstaller): download markitdown-desktop-setup.exe and run it — installs per-user (no admin rights needed), adds a Start Menu shortcut, and registers a proper uninstaller.
• Windows — Portable .exe (no install, just run it): download markitdown-desktop.exe directly — a single file, no install, no unzip.
• macOS/Linux: each release includes a ready-to-run zip — download the one for your OS, unzip, and run markitdown-desktop.

A zipped Windows build (markitdown-desktop-windows.zip) is also available on the releases page if you prefer that format.

Requirements (running from source)

• Windows 10/11, macOS, or Linux
• Python 3.10+ (on Windows, check "Add python.exe to PATH" during install)
• For audio transcription only: ffmpeg on PATH

Installing from source

git clone https://github.com/andrest04/markitdown-desktop.git
cd markitdown-desktop
python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

On macOS/Linux, use python3 instead of python if that's how your system exposes it.

Running

• Windows: double-click run.bat, or run python main.py.
• macOS/Linux: run ./run.sh, or python3 main.py.

The "open containing folder" action (double-click a finished row) uses explorer on Windows, open -R on macOS, and xdg-open on Linux.

Project structure

main.py                    entry point
app/ui/main_window.py      main window, drop zone, advanced settings dialog
app/ui/theme.py            light/dark QSS stylesheets
app/core/converter.py      MarkItDown wrapper, background worker, auto-save logic
app/core/queue_model.py    queue table data model
app/i18n.py                English/Spanish translation layer

Contributing

Contributions and suggestions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to get set up and the project's conventions. This project follows the Code of Conduct.

	Link
Issues	Open an issue
PRs	Open pull requests
Security	See SECURITY.md for how to report vulnerabilities privately

Credits & License

This project wraps markitdown by Microsoft, licensed under the MIT License. All actual file-conversion logic is theirs — this repository only adds a desktop GUI on top of their public Python API. All credit for markitdown itself goes to Microsoft and its contributors.

This GUI's own code is licensed under the MIT License as well. "MarkItDown" is a name used by Microsoft's project; this repository is an unofficial, unaffiliated GUI and claims no association with or endorsement by Microsoft.