MindNode 2026.6.1 — Mac version

Students unwinding knotted essay plans, developers sketching out feature branches, writers who've hit a wall — MindNode tends to attract people who think better when they can spread ideas around and connect them. It's a mind map app that doesn't try to be a project management suite. You add nodes, drag them where they belong, and the map grows with you.

Getting a map started

Tap out a central thought and branch off with Tab. The canvas supports both vertical and horizontal layouts, so you're not locked into one way of organising. If your map outgrows the screen, an external display gives you more room to breathe.

Making it yours

Custom themes and personal styling let you set typefaces, branch shapes and colours that suit the way you work. The 260-odd stickers are hand-drawn and can be recoloured — handy for marking priorities or just breaking up a wall of text.

Sending stuff elsewhere

MindNode exports to a long list of formats: plain text, RTF, DOCX, CSV, OPML, PDF, Markdown and TaskPaper. You can also send individual nodes straight to Apple Reminders, Things or OmniFocus as tasks. iCloud features don't work in this version, but documents saved in iCloud Drive still open on any device you've got MindNode on.

A freelancer working up a pitch

A copywriter I know uses MindNode to build proposals. She dumps client notes, audience research and rough headlines into one map, then drags branches around until a structure clicks. The quick entry window is her favourite bit — it sits in the menu bar so she can catch a thought mid-sentence without leaving her draft. By the time she opens the full map, half the work is already there. She exports the finished thing as Markdown and pastes it into her proposal doc. No reformatting, just a clean handover.

Tab to add exercises, reading, logistics from a central node

You open a blank canvas and type “workshop handout” as the central node. Tab adds three branches: exercises, reading, logistics. You paste a few links under reading, then remember two more topics. The quick entry window grabs them without switching windows. Back in the map, you notice the logistics branch is getting thick, so you collapse it with a tap and focus on exercises. A sticker — the little orange flag — marks the one exercise that still needs a handout. You drag it to the top of the branch, hit Export, and send a PDF to the printer. Twenty minutes, start to finish.

• macOS 15 or later
• Works on Apple Silicon and Intel 64-bit Macs