Apple has added a built-in Uniform Type Identifier entry for Markdown in its version 27 operating system betas, according to Apple Developer documentation.
The new Swift type property is listed as UTType.markdown in Apple’s Uniform Type Identifiers documentation. Apple describes it as a type for Markdown data and marks it as available in iOS 27.0 and later, iPadOS 27.0 and later, macOS 27.0 and later, Mac Catalyst 27.0 and later, tvOS 27.0 and later, visionOS 27.0 and later, and watchOS 27.0 and later. All of those entries are tagged beta.
The identifier Apple documents for the type is net.daringfireball.markdown. Apple also says it conforms to public.utf8-plain-text, which means the type sits under Apple’s UTF-8 plain text classification rather than being treated as some opaque binary blob. That is the sensible place for Markdown, a text format whose formatting is expressed through plain characters.
What developers get
In Swift, the API is exposed as a static property with a getter: static var markdown: UTType { get }. For developers using Apple’s Uniform Type Identifiers framework, that provides a system-defined way to refer to Markdown files instead of hard-coding a string identifier or maintaining an app-local definition.
Apple’s documentation does not describe any file-extension mapping, Finder behavior, system app changes, or user-facing Markdown features tied to the new type. It only documents the type property, the identifier string, platform availability, and its conformance to UTF-8 plain text. Anything beyond that is speculation until Apple ships final documentation or visible OS behavior.
Still beta, so do not carve it into stone
Apple labels the page as beta software documentation and says the information is preliminary. The company warns that APIs or technologies in development can change, and that software written against the documentation should be tested with final operating system releases.
That caveat matters here because type identifiers are glue. Apps use them to decide what files they can open, what data they can export, and how to describe content to the rest of the system. A built-in Markdown type is cleaner than every app freelancing its own answer, but the documented API is still part of Apple’s beta stack until the version 27 systems ship in final form.
This story draws on original reporting from Apple Developer Documentation.
