SimplyView

About

Render Markdown, HTML, JSON, and source code files inline in Google Drive and Google Chat — exactly the way they were meant to be read.

Drive and Chat open most non-Google file formats as plain source. SimplyView is a free Chrome extension that adds a "View" button to Drive's file viewer, Drive's folder preview, and Google Chat's shared-file preview — so the file you click actually renders instead of dumping its source at you.

Built for developers, product managers, writers, designers, and anyone whose work isn't 100% Google Docs. If you store or share READMEs, design specs, configs, API responses, or scripts, SimplyView turns the preview into something you'd actually want to read.

🪄 Real Rendering, Not Source
Markdown shows up as formatted text with proper headings, tables, task lists, and syntax-highlighted code blocks — the same look you'd get on GitHub. HTML pages render the way a browser would render them. JSON becomes a collapsible tree you can search and copy from. Source code is highlighted with line numbers and a one-click copy button.

🪟 Works in Drive and Chat
SimplyView shows up where other preview tools don't: the standalone Drive file viewer, the modal preview that opens when you double-click a file inside a Drive folder, and the preview of a file someone shares with you in Google Chat. Navigate between files inside the modal and SimplyView keeps up.

🌙 Built-In Dark Mode
The viewer follows your system theme automatically. Rendered content, the overlay, and syntax highlighting all swap together — no flash of light, no manual toggle.

⌨️ Keyboard-First
Press Cmd+Shift+Y on Mac or Ctrl+Shift+Y on Windows and Linux to open the current file without reaching for the mouse. Press Esc to close.

🔒 Nothing Leaves Your Browser
SimplyView has no servers, no analytics, no tracking, no third-party SDKs. In Drive it loads files using the session your browser is already signed into. In Google Chat it reads only what Google has already rendered on the page and makes no network request at all. The full source code is published on GitHub — you can audit exactly what runs inside the extension.

Get back the hour a week you spend squinting at raw source code.