10 Best Text Editors That You can Use in Mac The another best text editors that you will surely love to try. This is a favorite of developers because of the features it offers.P programmers can easily use different UI for the coding languages and can easily track the code changes in this editor.
Windows and macOS come pre-installed with a program that can open and edit text files. It's called TextEdit on Macs and Notepad on Windows, but neither are quite as advanced as some of the third-party applications that are available today.
Most of the text editors below need to be downloaded to your computer before you can use them, but all of them provide their own unique set of features that set them apart from the default software programs that come with Windows and Mac.
Why Use a Text Editor?
A text editor lets you open a file as a text document, something that can be useful for a number of reasons:
- Best Code Editors for Mac users Sublime Text. If you are graduating from Notepad and prefer a code editor that is simple to use than the Sublime Text is likely to fit the bill. It comes equipped with syntax detection algorithms, Goto Anything, Multiple Selections, Command Pallete and other useful features.
- Sublime Text is a self-described “sophisticated text editor” that markets itself as a code, markup, and prose editor. It’s probably overkill for the simplest text editing tasks though, considering it costs $80 for a license.
- Create a file from scratch using a specific programming language, like an HTML or CSS file for use on a website
- Edit or build files that end with the TXT, REG, XML, CSV, ASP, BAT, AU3, PHP, AHK, SVG, or JS file extension, among many others
- View the text version of a file that you don't know the format for
- Quickly remove formatting like bold, custom font types, URL hyperlinks, etc.
If you just need a super quick way to strip the formatting from some text, try this online text editor. To make a .TXT file online without downloading a program, try Edit Pad.
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Notepad++
What We Like
- Tabbed interface
- Automatically restores recently opened, unsaved files
- Auto-completes as you write
- Includes tons of really helpful features like macros, syntax highlighting, and plugins
- Opens basically any file as a text document
- There's a portable version available
Notepad++ is the best alternative notepad application for Windows computers. It’s really easy to use for basic users who just need a text file opener or editor but also includes some really advanced features for those interested.
This program uses tabbed browsing which means you can open multiple documents at once and they'll display at the top of Notepad++ as tabs. While each tab represents its own file, Notepad++ can interact with all of them at once to do things like compare files for differences and search for or replace text.
Probably the easiest way to edit files with Notepad++ is to right-click the file and choose Edit with Notepad++ from the context menu.
This program can open nearly any file as a text document and supports lots of helpful plugins. It also includes a really handy text search/replace function, highlights syntax automatically, auto-completes words, and is the best offline text file converter.
The Notepad++ Find option lets you search for words with criteria like backward direction, match whole word only, match case, and wrap around.
Also supported is bookmarking, macros, auto-backup, multi-page searching, resumed sessions, read-only mode, encoding conversions, and the ability to search for words on Wikipedia and quickly open the document in your web browser.
Notepad++ also supports plugins to do things like auto-save open documents, merge all the text from open documents into one main file, align programming code, monitor open documents to refresh them as they change, copy and paste more than one item from the clipboard at once, and lots more.
![Code editors for mac Code editors for mac](https://www.forum18.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/textwrangler.png)
Notepad++ lets you save text documents to a huge variety of formats like TXT, CSS, ASM, AU3, BASH, BAT, HPP, CC, DIFF, HTML, REG, HEX, JAVA, SQL, VBS, and many others.
Notepad++ works with Windows only, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. You can also grab a portable version of Notepad++ from the download page; one is in the ZIP format and the other is a 7Z file.
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Brackets
What We Like
- Perfect for an uncluttered, minimal working space
- Supports split-screen editing
- Includes code-specific syntax highlighting
- Can view updates for some files live in your web browser
- Lets you use keyboard shortcuts
- Works on Windows, Linux, and macOS
- Plugins are supported to add extra features
What We Don't Like
- Built mainly for people with code development in mind, so most of the features are centered around project files, displaying code, etc.
Brackets is a free text editor that's primarily meant for web designers, but can of course be used by anyone to view or edit a text document.
The interface is extremely clean and modern and feels really easy to use despite all of its advanced settings. In fact, nearly all of the options are hidden away from plain site so that it's easy for anyone to use, which also provides an extremely open UI for editing.
Code writers might like that Brackets highlights syntax, can split the screen to edit more than one document simultaneously, lets you click one No Distractions button for a really simple interface, and supports lots of keyboard shortcuts so that you can quickly indent, duplicate, move between lines, toggle line and block comments, show or hide code hints, and more.
You can quickly change the file type you're working with to instantly change syntax highlighting rules, as well as change the encoding of the file if you need to.
If you're editing a CSS or HTML file, you can enable the Live Preview option to watch the page update in real time in your web browser as you make changes to the file.
The Working Files area is where you can open all of the files that belong to a single project, and quickly move between them without leaving Brackets.
Some examples of plugins you can use in Brackets includes one to support W3C validation, Ungit to make it easier to use Git, an HTML tag menu, and Python tools.
Brackets comes installed with both a dark and a light theme that you can change at any time, but there are dozens of others that you can install through the Extensions Manager.
Brackets is available as a DEB, MSI, and DMG file for use in Linux, Windows, and macOS, respectively.
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Komodo Edit
What We Like
- Very attractive and modern interface
- You can make virtual projects to bring together files from various locations
- Supports unique features not found in similar text editors
- Changing the interface setup is easy with one click
- The tabbed interface is easy to work with
- Runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows
What We Don't Like
- It's a bit complex — even with its minimal UI — for people who want just a simple text editor
Komodo Edit is another free text editor with a super clear and minimal design that still manages to pack some awesome features.
Voice to text free for mac os 10.11. Various view modes are included so that you can quickly open or close specific windows. One is “Focus Mode” to hide all of the open windows and just display the editor, and the others show/hide things like folders, the syntax checker results, and notifications.
This program makes it very easy to open text documents even while one is currently open. At the very top of the program is the path to the currently opened file, and you can select the arrow next to any folder to get a list of files, any of which will open as a new tab in Komodo Edit if you select it.
The folder views off to the side of Komodo Edit are also really useful since they let you browse through the file system as well as create virtual projects that link folders and files together to better organize what you need to work on.
A unique feature in Komodo Edit is the area at the upper-left side of the program that lets you not only undo and redo like most programs, but also go back to the previous cursor location, as well as go forward to return to where you just were.
Here are some other Komodo Edit features worth noting:
- Can connect to a remote FTP server to open and/or save files
- Supports bookmarking specific areas of the document
- Lets you switch to a huge number of file types to highlight syntax differently and to save under that format
- The 'Go to Anything' search box lets you search for files to open, install add-ons, run scripts and commands, open menus, install other languages, change the color scheme, and more
- Recently closed tabs and files are easy to re-open
- Lets you preview files in a web browser
- Templates can be built out of existing files
- A 'Watch File' option can open a document in a new window for reference withouting being added to the tabbed list of files you're editing
- Records macros that can be played back to repeat things
This text editor works with Windows, Mac, and Linux.
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Visual Studio Code
What We Like
- Whole folders can be opened at once to open all of the text files
- A minimal interface is just one click away
- Supports tabs for easy file tracking
- Includes a debugger; perfect for source code editing
What We Don't Like
- Centered primarily around editing and debugging code, so it could be too much for the average user
- Settings are difficult to change
Visual Studio Code is a free text editor that's used primarily as a source code editor.
The program is extremely minimal and even has a 'Zen Mode' option one click away that immediately hides all the menus and windows, and maximizes the program to fill the whole screen.
The tabbed browsing interface seen with other text editors is supported in Visual Studio Code as well, which makes it really easy to work with multiple documents at once.
You can also open entire folders of files at once if you're working on a project, and even save the project for easy retrieval later.
However, this text editor probably isn't ideal unless you plan to use it for programming purposes. There are entire sections dedicated to debugging code, viewing command outputs, managing source control providers, and even using a built-in Command Prompt.
The settings are also not as intuitive to adjust since you have to modify them using the text editor; the settings are entirely text-based.
Here are some features you might find useful in this program:
- You can open whole folders at once from the right-click context menu
- A 'Change All Occurrences' option makes it easy to select and edit text you want to change throughout the entire document in one sweep
- Similar is the 'Rename Refactoring' option to change the name of a symbol in every instance of it across all the documents in your project
- Opening recently closed documents is easy since they're listed in the same place
- The 'IntelliSense' feature helps to automatically fill in code based on surrounding text and the location of the cursor in the document
- Files can be auto-saved if you turn the option on
- A document can quickly be reverted back to the state it was in when you last saved it
- The editing space can be split into multiple windows for side-by-side reading and editing
- Dozens of keyboard shortcuts are allowed and fully editable, such as one to copy/paste an entire line of code directly above or below the current position
- You can change the color theme of the program as well as the theme of icons
- Extensions can be installed to add more features to Visual Studio Code, such as one to debug JavaScript code in the Chrome browser and another to run programming code directly from the text editor
- When searching for text strings, you can define whether to match the case and/or the whole word
Visual Studio Code can be installed on Windows, Mac, and Linux computers.
Active3 months ago
I searched for this and found Maudite's question about text editors but they were all for Windows.
As you have no doubt guessed, I am trying to find out if there are any text/code editors for the Mac besides what I know of. I'll edit my post to include editors listed.
Free
- Aquamacs and closer to the original EMacs
- TextMate2 - GPL
Commercial
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Thank you everybody that has added suggestions.
closed as not constructive by Bo Persson, Flexo♦, casperOneApr 2 '12 at 19:34
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39 Answers
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I haven't used it myself, but another free one that I've heard good thing about is Smultron.
In my own research on this, I found this interesting article:Faceoff: Which Is The Best Mac Text Editor Ever?
I thought TextMate was everyone's favourite. I haven't met a programmer using a Mac who is not using TextMate.
- Emacs
- Vim
But I use TextMate, and can say that it is, without a doubt, worth every penny I paid for it.
Sublime text is awesome (http://www.sublimetext.com/2). Excellent search features, very fast and lightweight. Very decent code completion.
I also use RubyMine and WebStorm a lot (http://www.jetbrains.com/). Plain text editor for mac. They are excellent but not all purpose like TextMate.
I've tried Komodo out a bit, and I really like it so far. Aptana, an Eclipse variant, is also rather useful for a wide variety of things. There's always good ole' VI, too!
If you ever plan on making a serious effort at learning Emacs, immediately forget about Aquamacs. It tries to twist and bend Emacs into something it's not (a super-native OS X app). That might sound well and all, but once you realize that it completely breaks nearly every standard keybinding and behavior of Emacs, you begin to wonder why you aren't just using TextEdit or TextMate.
Carbon Emacs is a good Emacs application for OS X. It is as close as you'll get to GNU Emacs without compiling for yourself. It fits in well enough with the operating system, but at the same time, is the wonderful Emacs we all know and love. Currently it requires Leopard with the latest release, but most people have upgraded by now anyway. You can fetch it here.
Alternatively, if you want to use Vim on OS X, I've heard good things about MacVim.
Beyond those, there are the obvious TextEdit, TextMate, etc line of editors. They work for some people, but most 'advanced' users I know (myself included) hate touching them with anything shorter than a 15ft pole.
CotEditor is a Cocoa-based open source text editor. It is popular in Japan.
Best open source one is Smultron in my opinion, but it doesn't a torch to TextMate.
There's a new kid on the block - PHPStorm. I used it for a whole year. Its not free but offers an individual license of 49$ for a year, free for Open Source Developers.
- Speedy for an IDE - Its based on Java so looks somewhat like Eclipse/Netbeans but smokes them to dust in terms of speed (not as fast as Coda/Textmate as this is an IDE).
- Keyboard shortcuts galore - I seldom touched the mouse while developing using PHPStorm (that's what I didn't like about Coda)
- Subversion support built-in - Didn't need to touch Versions or any other SVN client on Mac
- Supports snippets, templates - zen-coding is supported as well
- Supports projects, though in separate windows
- File search, code search
- code completion, supports PHPDoc code completion too
- BBEdit makes all other editors look like Notepad.
It handles gigantic files with ease; most text editors (TextMate especially) slow down to a dead crawl or just crash when presented with a large file.
The regexp and multiple-file Find dialogs beat anything else for usability. How to make a text box transparent in word for mac.
The clippings system works like magic, and has selection, indentation, placeholder, and insertion point tags, it's not just dumb text.
BBEdit is heavily AppleScriptable. Everything can be scripted.
In 9.0, BBEdit has code completion, projects, and a ton of other improvements.
I primarily use it for HTML, CSS, JS, and Python, where it's extremely strong. Some more obscure languages are not as well-supported in it, but for most purposes it's fantastic.
The only devs I know who like TextMate are Ruby fans. I really do not get the appeal, it's marginally better than TextWrangler (BBEdit's free little brother), but if you're spending money, you may as well buy the better tool for a few dollars more.
- jEdit does have the virtue of being cross-platform. It's not nearly as good as BBEdit, but it's a competent programmer's editor. If you're ever faced with a Windows or Linux system, it's handy to have one tool you know that works.
- Vim is fine if you have to work over ssh and the remote system or your computer can't do X11. I used to love Vim for the ease of editing large files and doing repeated commands. But these days, it's a no-vote for me, with the annoyance of the non-standard search & replace (using (foo) groups instead of (foo), etc.), painfully bad multi-document handling, lack of a project/disk browser view, lack of AppleScript, and bizarre mouse handling in the GVim version.
jEdit runs on OS X, being Java-based. It's somewhat similar to TextMate, I think.
Editra looks interesting, but I've not tried it myself.
TextMate not for 'advanced programmers'. That does not make sense, TextMate contains everything an 'advanced programmer' would want. It allows them to define a bundle that allows them to quickly set up the way they want their source code formatted, or one that follows the project guidelines, quick easy access to create entire structures and classes based on typing part of a construct and hitting tab.
TextMate is my tool of choice, it is fast, lightweight and yet contains all of the features I would want in a tool to program with. While it is not tightly integrated in Xcode, that is not a problem for me as I don't write software for Mac OS X. I write software for FreeBSD.
Definitely BBEdit. I code, and BBEdit is what I use to code.
You might consider one of the classics - they're both free, extensible and have large user bases that extend beyond the Mac:
- Aquamacs - emacs for OS X (emacs in a shell window is also an option)
- Mac Vim - VI with a Mac-specific GUI (vim in a shell window is also an option)
I prefer an old-school editing setup. I use command-line vim embedded in a GNU Screen 'window' inside of iTerm.
This may not integrate well with XCode, but I think it works great for developing and using command-line programs. If you spend any significant time working in a terminal, GNU Screen is worth the 30 minutes it takes to master the basic terminal multiplexing concepts.
Coda's great for PHP/ASP/HTML style development. Great interface, multiple-file search and replace with regexp support, slick FTP/SFTP/etc integration for browsing and editing remote files, SVN integration, etc.
It now supports plugins and the plugin editor can import TextMate bundles, so there's a bright future there. There aren't a lot of must-have plugins yet because the plugin support was newly introduced with version 1.6 a few months back. It's a popular app, though, so I expect more in the future.
The 'killer features' for me are:* Seamless editing of remote files* Code navigator (symbol browser; pane that lists functions etc)
Most people aren't really into using symbol browsers but as I have to maintain a lot of unfamiliar code I find them invaluable.
I'm not sure that Coda has the 'raw power' of TextMate though. I plan on getting familiar with TextMate next.
I make use of Komodo IDE. It supports a huge number of languages, and is customisable but is a bit expensive (my company bought me a copy). A really good alternative is the free version called Komodo Edit. Loads really quickly and has a decent feature list and I find myself turning to it rather than the full IDE for a lot of jobs.
I actually prefer EditRocket over TextMate. I use it on both my Mac and Ubuntu machines. It is nice to use the same editor on multiple operating systems.
Textmate is state of the Art editor, but if someone is thinking about developing on several platforms without awkward memory eaters monsters like jedit, eclipse, netbeans etc take a look at geany (geany.org). It is free. The only problem the editor has not esthetic look and feel on Mac OS X :)
Fraise is a nice free option. It has some rough edges, but you can't beat the price. I believe it's a fork or successor of Smultron.
I use Eclipse as my primary editor (for Python) but I always keep SubEthaEdit handy as my supplemental text editor (free trial, 30 euros to license). It's not super-complicated but it does what I need.
Another vote for Smultron. I used it when doing some XQuery programming and being able to define a keyword files for syntax color highlighting was great.
I have installed both Smultron and Textwrangler, but find myself using Smultron most of the time.
I would love to use a different editor than XCode for coding, but I feel, that no other editor integrates tightly enough with it to be really worthwhile.
However, given some time, TextMate might eventually get to that point. At the moment though, it primarily lacks debugging features and refactoring.
However, given some time, TextMate might eventually get to that point. At the moment though, it primarily lacks debugging features and refactoring.
For everything that does not need XCode, I love TextMate. If I had another Mac-user in my workgroup I would probably consider SubEthaEdit for its collaboration features. If it is Emacs you want, I would recommend Aquamacs (more Mac-like) or Carbon Emacs (more GNU-Emacs-like)
I've been using BBEdit for years. It's rock-solid, fast, and integrates into my Xcode workflow decently well. (I'm not sure anything integrates into Xcode as well as the built-in editor, but who has time to wait for the built-in editor?)
For small team projects which don't use a source control system, or for single user editing on multiple machines, SubEthaEdit comes highly recommended.
Free Code Editor For Mac
Eclipse and Netbeans have text editors among a whole lot of other stuff. I don't think you would want to wait 10 seconds for your text editor to become ready :/..If you are going to spend some serious time coding then spend some time and learn to use vim (emacs too but, I recommend vim)