Uniform Type Identifier for Markdown

I’ve been asked a few times recently what the recommended UTI is for Markdown-formatted text and text files. Here’s the answer, updated in July 2026:

net.daringfireball.markdown, which conforms to public.utf8-plain-text.

Back in 2014, I recommended conforming to public.plain-text, but stated that the encoding should always be UTF-8. public.utf8-plain-text conforms to public.plain-text, and enshrines the UTF-8 text encoding.

Now that a lot of Mac and iOS software have built-in support for Markdown, it’d be less confusing if everyone used the same UTI.

Update March 2014: Originally, I recommended that the net.daringfireball.markdown UTI should conform to public.text, but public.plain-text is a better choice.

★ Friday, 5 August 2011