Canopy

A simple, elegant mindmapping desktop app for thinking.

Canopy draws your ideas as a left-to-right tree. The root sits on the left. Branches grow to the right. Each branch gets its own pastel color. You can add ideas fast, drag nodes to arrange them, and tidy the whole tree back into place with one click.

Download

Get the latest build from the Releases page.

Pick the file for your system:

System	File
macOS (Apple Silicon)	Canopy_aarch64.dmg
macOS (Intel)	Canopy_x64.dmg
Windows	Canopy_x64-setup.exe (or the .msi)
Linux	.AppImage or .deb

These builds are not code-signed or notarized, so your OS will warn you before the first launch:

• macOS: right-click (or Control-click) the app and choose Open, then confirm in the dialog. Opening it normally from Finder will refuse to launch, since macOS blocks unsigned apps by default.
• Windows: click More info, then Run anyway on the SmartScreen prompt.

Features

• Add a child (Tab) or a sibling (Enter) to the selected node.
• Double-click a node, or hover it and click its + button, to edit its text.
• Delete the selected node (Delete/Backspace) along with its subtree.
• Navigate with arrow keys: Up/Down between siblings, Left to the parent, Right to the first child. Reorder siblings with Alt+Up/Down.
• Drag a node to reposition it, or drop it onto another node to reparent it there. Click Tidy up in the toolbar to clear all manual positioning and snap back to the auto-computed layout, or zoom to fit (toolbar button or 0) to frame the whole tree.
• Collapse/expand a subtree via the toggle on any node with children.
• Add notes (N), a link (L), an icon/emoji (I), or a checklist status (T cycles todo/done) to the selected node. A link renders as a clickable badge that opens in your default browser.
• Select multiple nodes with shift+click for bulk recolor, bulk delete, or dragging the whole group together.
• Find a node with ⌘F; jump between matches with the arrows next to it.
• Press F (or the toolbar button) to focus on a branch, dimming everything else.
• Paste an image from your clipboard onto the selected node.
• Work on multiple maps at once via the tab strip above the toolbar, or start a new one from a starter template.
• Pan (drag empty canvas) and zoom (scroll wheel), with a minimap for quick navigation on larger maps.
• Recolor a branch from the toolbar's color swatches, including a custom color picker.
• Switch between curved/straight edges, or a hand-drawn "sketchy" style.
• Pick a font (including a hand-drawn one) and toggle dark mode from the tab strip.
• Undo/redo (⌘Z / ⌘⇧Z) for every change.
• Save (⌘S) and open (⌘O) .canopy files, a plain JSON format, or reopen one from the toolbar's recent-files list. On macOS, double-clicking a .canopy file opens it directly in Canopy.
• Import a Markdown outline, or export the current map as PNG, SVG, or a Markdown outline, from the toolbar. Print directly from the toolbar too.

Development

Requires Bun and the Tauri prerequisites for your platform (a Rust toolchain, plus platform build tools).

bun install
bun run tauri dev   # launch the desktop app (first run compiles Rust deps, ~1min)
bun run test        # vitest, jsdom environment
bunx tsc --noEmit    # type-check

The dev app does not read or write any file by default. It boots a small starter tree so you can jump straight into your own map.

How it works

File	Responsibility
src/model.ts	The tree data structure and pure mutation helpers.
src/layout.ts	Computes every node's position from the tree.
src/textwrap.ts	Measures and wraps node text.
src/render.ts	Draws the tree as SVG, including the hand-drawn "sketchy" style, multi-select highlighting, and focus-mode dimming.
src/app.ts	Owns UI state and every event listener for one map.
src/toolbar.ts	The floating toolbar.
src/tabs.ts / src/workspace.ts	The tab strip and multi-map coordination.
src/history.ts	Undo/redo stack.
src/persistence.ts	Save/load to a local .canopy file.
src/exportFile.ts, exportImage.ts, exportMarkdown.ts	Export to PNG/SVG/Markdown.
src/importMarkdown.ts	Import a Markdown outline as a map.
src/printMap.ts	Print the current map.
src/recentFiles.ts	The toolbar's Open Recent list.
src/templates.ts	Starter templates for the "+" button.
src/theme.ts	Dark mode.
src/fonts.ts	The font picker.
src/search.ts	The find bar (⌘F).
src/minimap.ts	The navigable minimap.
src-tauri/	The Tauri (Rust) shell: window, file dialogs, file system access, and file-association handling.

See CLAUDE.md for the design decisions behind these files and a list of known bugs worth remembering.

Releasing a build

Push a tag matching v* (for example v0.2.0) to trigger .github/workflows/release.yml. It builds Canopy for macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows, and Linux, then publishes the installers to a new GitHub release under that tag.

git tag v0.2.0
git push origin v0.2.0