Alternatives to MacOS Textedit?

[PeteBurgh]

Drafts

I second this. Drafts is brilliant - after Safari, it's probably my single most used app. It's very unobtrusive and minimal when I just want a notepad, but also extremely flexible and extendable when needed.

Best of all - reliability - I have it open all day, every (working) day on my Mac, and frequently on my iPad and phone. In 2-3 years I don't remember ever having a crash or a syncing issue of any kind.

Tried that one, works great but a bit expensive.

Yeah, I can understand that, particularly if it's not an everyday app. As with so many things, you get what you pay for.

 

[AZhappyjack]

There’s a free mode for BBEdit

Bare Bones Software | BBEdit Comparison Chart

 

[Basic75]

Are there any free plain text editors you recommend?

https://emacsformacosx.com/

 

[bogdanw]

Newer thread with many suggestions in the first post https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/an-application-similar-to-notepad-on-mac.2345965/

 

[traderdude123]

Has anyone tried Zed editor. It can be used for plain text editing also. It super fast and its gets out of the way when typying. I really enjoy typing in this editor. Its so lightweight and super fast for plain text and coding.

Its still in beta , but for plain text it should be fine.

Goto https://zed.dev/ to download.

 

[Tagbert]

I think the best option would be to get the free version of BBEdit. It has most of the features of the full product and that is a lot of features. BBEdit is one of the best and fastest text editors on the Mac. Eventually maybe you will want those features or you may just want to help support quality software on the Mac and will buy it. It’s up to you.

Here is a list of the differences between free and paid

Bare Bones Software | BBEdit Comparison Chart

 

[SlCKB0Y]

I like TextMate: https://macromates.com/
Small (40mb) and can be quite powerful if you want.

 

[bogdanw]

As the previous post was ignored ...

These are some of the apps suggested so far:
Atom https://atom.io/ (discontinued)
Aquamacs https://aquamacs.org
BBEdit https://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/
CotEditor https://coteditor.com
Geany https://www.geany.org
Kate https://kate-editor.org
MacVim https://macvim-dev.github.io/macvim
Notepad Next https://github.com/dail8859/NotepadNext
Smultron https://www.peterborgapps.com/smultron/
Sublime Text https://www.sublimetext.com
Tincta https://codingfriends.github.io/Tincta/
TextEdit https://support.apple.com/guide/textedit/welcome/mac
TextMate https://macromates.com
TextWrangler https://www.barebones.com/support/textwrangler/updates.html (discontinued)
UltraEdit https://www.ultraedit.com
Visual Studio Code https://code.visualstudio.com
Zed https://zed.dev

 

[chown33]

Moderation Note

Please continue any discussion or suggestions in the newer thread:

An Application similar to NOTEPAD++ on Mac

I'm looking for an Application similar to NOTEPAD++ on Mac. Notepad ++ is very versatile and user-friendly text reader. It allows you to change the color of the background and also the font of the text. Performing searches on it is also easy. What's a similar app on Mac that's free? I should...

forums.macrumors.com