MarkItDown GUI

A small, portable Windows app for converting documents to Markdown with Microsoft MarkItDown.
Drag files in or paste a web page URL, click Convert, get clean .md files. No installer, no command line.

Unofficial project. MarkItDown GUI is an independent front-end. It is not made by or affiliated with Microsoft. All document conversion is done by the official, unmodified MarkItDown.

Contents

• Download
• Install on this PC (optional)
• First run
• How to use
• Features
• Options
• Updates
• Supported formats
• Where files are stored
• Troubleshooting
• Build from source
• Credits

Download

1. Open the latest release.
2. Download MarkItDown-GUI.exe (about 7 MB).
3. Put it in any folder you like and double-click it. You can rename it if you like.

That's it. The app is a single portable .exe that runs on any 64-bit Windows 10 or 11 PC without extra DLLs or admin rights. If you prefer a regular installed app, see the next section.

Windows may show a SmartScreen warning the first time because the app is not code-signed. Click More info, then Run anyway.

Install on this PC (optional)

Portable is the default, but the app can also install itself like a normal Windows program:

1. Open Options and, under App, click Install on this PC (optionally with a desktop shortcut).
2. The app is copied to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\MarkItDown GUI, a Start menu shortcut is added, and MarkItDown GUI appears in Settings > Apps > Installed apps.
3. Your existing MarkItDown runtime and settings are moved along, so nothing is downloaded again.
4. Click Open installed app to switch to the installed copy.

No admin rights are needed because it installs for your Windows user only. To remove it, use Uninstall under Options > App, or uninstall it from Windows Settings like any other app.

First run

On first launch the app sets everything up by itself. You do not need to install Python.

1. It looks for an existing MarkItDown on your PC.
2. If there is none, it downloads the official embeddable Python from python.org into a private MarkItDown GUI runtime folder next to the .exe.
3. It installs markitdown[all] into that private Python and checks that it starts.

Progress is shown in a log window. This takes a few minutes and about 500 MB of disk space, once. Nothing is installed system-wide, nothing is added to PATH, and no admin rights are needed.

How to use

1. Add files or web pages. Drag files or whole folders onto the window, click the drop zone, or use Add files / Add folder. You can also drop files onto the .exe itself. Or paste a web page address into the URL field (under the drop zone, or at the top of the list) and press Enter or Add URL.
2. Choose where to save. By default each .md is saved next to its original file, and web pages go to your Downloads folder. Pick Folder: to send everything to one folder instead.
3. Click Convert. Each file shows its status: Ready, Queued, a spinner while converting, then Done or the error.
4. Open the result. Use Open to open the Markdown file, or Folder to show it in File Explorer. Failed files have a Retry button, and hovering the error shows the full message.

Click Stop at any time to cancel. Running conversions are stopped immediately.

Features

• Batch conversion with drag and drop of files and folders
• Convert web pages by URL (saved as site - page.md)
• Saves next to each input file by default, or to a folder you choose
• Never overwrites existing files unless you allow it (uses name (1).md instead)
• Converts several files in parallel (1 to 8 at a time)
• Per-file Open, Show in folder, Retry and full error details
• Every MarkItDown command-line option is available as a setting (see below)
• Automatic first-run setup with a private Python runtime
• Portable by default, or one-click install with Start menu shortcut and a normal Windows uninstaller
• Checks for new versions of the app and of MarkItDown, and updates either with one click
• Remembers your settings between sessions
• Light on resources: a native Rust app (egui), about 7 MB

Options

Click Options in the top-right corner.

Setting	What it does	MarkItDown flag
Overwrite existing .md files	Replace files with the same name instead of creating name (1).md
Keep embedded images (data URIs)	Keep images inside the Markdown as base64 instead of placeholders	--keep-data-uris
Open output folder when done	Opens the folder in File Explorer after a batch finishes
Parallel jobs	How many files convert at the same time
Use 3rd-party plugins / List	Enable installed MarkItDown plugins and list them	-p, --list-plugins
Extension, MIME type, Charset	Hints for files with missing or wrong extensions	-x, -m, -c
Azure Document Intelligence	Higher quality conversion of PDFs and scans with Azure	-d, -e
Azure Content Understanding	Analyze documents, images, audio and video with Azure	--use-cu, --cu-endpoint, --cu-analyzer, --cu-file-types
Azure API key	Optional key for the Azure options. Never saved to disk	AZURE_API_KEY
markitdown command	Use a specific markitdown.exe or python.exe instead of auto-detect

Updates

Options > Updates has a Check for updates button and checks automatically on startup (turn this off with Check for updates on startup). It covers two things:

• MarkItDown GUI (this app). Compares your version with the latest release here. When a newer one exists, click Update app (or the green App x.y.z available button in the title bar). The new version is downloaded, swapped in and restarted automatically, for both portable and installed copies.
• MarkItDown (converter). Compares your MarkItDown with the latest Microsoft release (PyPI as a fallback). Upgrade now, or the Update to x.y.z button in the title bar, runs python -m pip install --upgrade "markitdown[all]" and shows the output live.

Supported formats

Anything MarkItDown supports, including:

PDF, Word (.docx), PowerPoint (.pptx), Excel (.xlsx, .xls), HTML, CSV, JSON, XML, EPUB, ZIP archives, Outlook messages (.msg), images (EXIF metadata), audio (speech transcription) and web pages by URL (including Wikipedia articles, YouTube video pages with transcripts, RSS feeds and Bing search results).

Where files are stored

What	Where
The app (portable)	Wherever you put the .exe
The app (installed)	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\MarkItDown GUI
Settings	MarkItDown GUI.settings.ron next to the .exe
Private Python and MarkItDown	MarkItDown GUI runtime\ next to the .exe

If the .exe is in a folder you cannot write to (for example Program Files), settings and the runtime go to %LOCALAPPDATA%\MarkItDown GUI instead.

To move the app to another PC without downloading again, copy the .exe together with the MarkItDown GUI runtime folder. To remove it completely, delete the .exe, the settings file and the runtime folder.

Troubleshooting

Setup says it could not download Python. The PC needs internet access to python.org and pypi.org on first run. Check proxies or firewalls and press Install again.

"A Windows runtime library is missing". Install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (x64), then press Install again.

I already have MarkItDown installed. The app finds it automatically on PATH, in pip's user Scripts folders, or via python -m markitdown. You can also point Options > markitdown command at a specific markitdown.exe or python.exe.

A web page converts to an empty or almost empty file. Pages built with JavaScript are loaded in a hidden Microsoft Edge (or Chrome) automatically when the direct download is empty. Pages behind a sign-in can't be converted; save the page from your browser (Ctrl+S) and convert the saved .html file instead.

Images from Word files are missing. By default MarkItDown replaces images with placeholders. Turn on Keep embedded images (data URIs).

Build from source

Requirements: Rust (stable).

git clone https://github.com/mohdbushnaq/markitdown-gui.git
cd markitdown-gui
build.bat

build.bat builds a release with the C runtime linked statically and writes MarkItDown GUI.exe next to it. Every push to main is also built by GitHub Actions; the .exe is available under the run's artifacts.

How it works

The app is written in Rust with egui. It does not contain any MarkItDown code. It runs the markitdown command line in the background with no console window, one process per file, and reads the result and any errors back into the interface.

File	Purpose
src/main.rs	User interface, settings and conversion queue
src/runner.rs	Finding and running MarkItDown, parallel workers, cancellation
src/update.rs	Release checks, private Python setup, pip updates and app self-update
src/install.rs	Optional per-user install, shortcuts, Windows uninstall entry

Credits

• Conversion by Microsoft MarkItDown (MIT License).
• Interface built with egui / eframe and rfd.

Created by Mohammed Bushnaq.

License

MIT © 2026 Mohammed Bushnaq