What's the best app for writing on the Mac?

Question

I need something for taking notes and putting together blog posts.

Björn A · Accepted Answer

Simple and beautiful app. For iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Pablo J. Malacara · Answer

I have them all: iA writer a long time favorite of mine for many years, Ulysses was a revolutionary addition but I just simply couldn't adopt MD XL and there is just too many settings in my opinion, Scrivener is just as convoluted, nvALT started to feel old a while ago, Evernote - no thanks, and so many more on the list, but Bear, damn I love this app, it ticks all the boxes, no fuss, no fiddling with unnecessary configurations but you can get it to work the way you want to, it doesn't matter how complex your workflow is, design is beautiful, always updated, it embraces Markdown so I don't have to shift mental gears all the time. What they say *"Bear is perfect for everything from quick notes to in-depth essays"* is totally true.

Ryan Hoover · Answer

Grammarly is a great tool to improve your writing and catch grematical and punctuaton errorrs.

It's not a Mac app, but a Chrome extension so if it may only work if you write in one of the many browser-based writing tools like Medium or Draft.

Kartik Chaturvedi · Answer

I switched from Evernote + Pages + Notes to Bear a few weeks ago and have never looked back

Joel Fischer · Answer

By far my favorite long-form writing app on Mac. Clear and simple writing in Markdown with numerous output formats and styles. It was easy to create my own output style as well with a little digging. Simple, clean, beautiful, and powerful.

Michael Quirke · Answer

Really good on iPhone / iOS especially.

Ben Lang · Answer

Super minimalistic and distraction free writing app.

Answer

The cleanest, best integrated, and reliable text editor I've ever used on Mac or iOS.

Jack DeManche · Answer

This is the best writing app I've ever used. Clean and simple. No fluff.

I love the Focus Mode and Reading Time (which is where Medium got the idea) features, plus it's available on all your favorite devices.

Brett Terpstra · Answer

Not an editor, but for "writing on the Mac" it's an essential tool. You can use it with _any_ text editor (including Ulysses, Scrivener, Bear, IA Writer, and more) and add a flexible and styleable Markdown preview, detailed analysis and checking tools (word repetition, spelling/grammar, reading time/scores), as well as multiple export formats.

Emanuil Rusev · Answer

Combines the aesthetics of prose editors with the productivity features of code editors - features like syntax assistance, multiple cursors, file manager, etc.

Pedro Lobo · Answer

A relative newcomer to the scene but there is already so much to love about this app. It's rife with features for those that want or need them and yet, it can be as simple as a blank slate.

Wesley Forlines · Answer

I've started to use Notion for writing drafts because of its very very simple interface (distraction free) and very easy way to drag around paragraphs and ideas. I can easily scrap a paragraph by tucking it into a toggle list but keeping it incase I need parts later.

Extremely intuitive and virtually no learning curve for writing.

Exports Markdown and PDF, but not recommended for publishing (unless your company uses Notion as a wiki or something). Big down side: it still doesn't integrate a spell check.

João Paulo · Answer

The best one i've used!

Answer

Wonderful for long form writing, have been using it for over 6 months now. Clean, beautiful and distraction free interface. It does not have a desktop app, which is a boon in disguise since you can use the Grammarly plugin on the web app (Its also the best designed web app note I have seen). Also has a clean, minimal IOS app that works wonderfully well. I had tried it out on Android as well, but the build of the app was not so great and kept crashing. If you want a free note taking app that is built to write long from content, research etc,  Dropbox paper is the way to go

Christoph Biering · Answer

There are many very good writer apps like Bear or the Apple Notes app out there but I needed a better way to handle small notes, links, todos etc. without losing the opportunity to use the markdown format. That was the reason why I created Stack. During the day I'm working with many different ideas in my mind. I use Stack to collect them without caring too much where to save them because Stack gives me the possibility to easily find and compose them later.

Answer

Love this app. Moved from Evernote / Notes as well. The best part is, It supports Markdown which I always prefer.

Aleksandra · Answer

I like how Hemingway helps me to improve my writing style. Also, integrations with Medium and Wordpress are very handy.

Kristo Mägi · Answer

As I have lots of tech writing to do and MarkDown is natural everyday reading/writing material then over the years I've used many MD editors. But MacDown is by far the best MD editor for sure.

JesperBylund · Answer

I'd be remiss if I didn't plug my own app. BlankPage helps thousands of writers stay motivated to finish their novels and short stories.

Chris Rumble · Answer

I can find and compile all my notes/research on a topic across and within all my Docs on Google Drive.

Praty · Answer

As a designer and researcher, you always need to take notes for future reference. I have been using Bear since it's beta. Always loved its simplicity and design. Markdown is handy and I have managed to convince my colleagues to adopt it as well (moved from OneNote to Bear!). Good luck to the Bear Team! ✌🏼

Beau Gunderson · Answer

I specifically like Atom with Zen mode: https://github.com/defunkt/zen

Mo Bitar · Answer

Standard Notes is simple and fast, offers Markdown editors for formatting, and is available on every platform, including Mac.

Abhi Sivasailam · Answer

Web app > desktop app, but still a useful, very different kind of editor.

Amit Merchant · Answer

Great for witing Markdowns and for writing in general. It has all the necessary features one editors should have. Check it out!

Ariza  · Answer

Classic tool.

J Keith Hall · Answer

The web version is beautiful and minimal and really my go to

Nikos Sarilakis · Answer

Quip is awesome! Simple and beautiful UI.

Ivan Zhao · Answer

- Try the "Mono" text style option. It's designed for writing ✍️
- When you start typing, all UI fades away. 0 distraction.
- Supports most Markdown shortcuts.
- Pages can contain pages. Turn long sections/headers into pages. Great for organization.
- Spellcheck is in the most recent Mac release 👈

Benji Smith · Answer

Shaxpir is a desktop writing app for Windows and Mac with templates for writing books (fiction and non-fiction), articles, and short stories.

Every novel you write in Shaxpir has its own notebook, where you can flesh out the characters, places, and themes of your story. You can create cross-references between notes to keep track of character relationships, symbolism, or plot structure, and you can even attach your own concept artwork. It’s like having a private wikipedia for the world of your story.

Since Shaxpir is a desktop app, you can work offline anytime, but it saves all of its data in the cloud, so your work is always securely backed up and synchronized between devices. You can even go back through your revision history and restore old versions of your content anytime.

Kim Doyal · Answer

If you like writing in Medium, this is pretty close to that. It's a clean, distraction-free writing experience. Love it.

H.Murchison · Answer

This is a darkhorse candidate.  It's not as polished as some of the other tools but feature-wise it competes with anyone.   Glad to see iOS apps now available adding further value to this gem.

Mikka Luster · Answer

After years of Ulysses, I have almost fully switched to MWeb. Its "External Mode" allows for the embedding of images, which are actually shown, tables are rendered in preview, and images can even be sent to a non-local destination before publishing. It supports Medium and WordPress, embeds and manages Hexo and Jekyll, and has dozens of other great features.

Liking Bear's link management better, though, and there's very little documentation and most is in Chinese.

Stanley Idesis · Answer

More votes for Dropbox Paper even if it's not offline-capable. This is my new favorite place to write, ever.

Ankush Dharkar · Answer

It lets you focus on just writing in a distraction-free writing environment, where you get to be in a flow of writing, without making too many edits

David Bennett · Answer

Does what it say - helps improve my writing and make it more appealing / easier to read.

Harrison Malone · Answer

My favourite. Fast, beautiful, awesome auto correct, and just works. I use this in combo with Dropbox Paper (we don't have Macs at work) :(

Nicole Hennig · Answer

Excellent app -- its suggestions make sense for clear, sharp writing style. I didn't know it had a Wordpress integration, so thanks for mentioning that.

Henrique Macedo · Answer

I love the Byword App! Super clean, markdown editor, integration with Medium and Evernote, etc. 👌

Isa M · Answer

It gets out of the way

Ananggadipa Raswanto · Answer

I love Ulysses the way I could publish easily to Medium/Wordpress website directly from the apps.

Clint Gardiner · Answer

Letterspace is awesome! I've been using it a for a while as my go-to note taking app. The minimal UI is great. Everything gets out of the way letting me focus on what’s most important - writing and note taking.

I have access to everything I need without ever taking my hands off of the keyboard. Markdown for formatting, hashtags for organizing notes, and the ability to jump to a different note or create a new one.

The iOS app is lightweight and fast, which is perfect for those times I need to jot something down quickly.

And, unlike Bear, you don't have to pay a subscription to enable syncing notes across devices. You pay for it once and you get access to syncing your notes via iCloud.

Answer

If you are serious about your writing this is serious about your work.

Doubly so if that's going to turn into a novel or screenplay.

Josh Pigford · Answer

I've tried nearly every app recommended here and I always come back to Ulysses. Organizational abilities plus no-frills...just fantastic.

Adrian Oprea · Answer

I use this for distraction-free editing and because it plays well with my iCloud Drive / Google Drive.

Эдик · Answer

The best writing experience ever

Answer

Serious. Simple. Magic.

Anything that makes use Markdown is an approach worth getting your mittens on.

bud parr · Answer

I write everything in IA Writer. Simple, file-based, and works on my Android phone.

Collin Duncan · Answer

Surprised this isn't at the top honestly. Yeah, it's a little pricey (it's included with SetApp for $10 per month, though), but it's very much worth the price. I do a lot of writing and this is my immediate go to for anything. Built in publishing tools for Medium, stunning interface, incredibly stable. It does it all.

Answer

Great. Very useful for it's organisational features. Even beats IA Writer there.

David Bennett · Answer

I like Ulysses because it is much more than a writing app. It becomes a repository for every piece of text you want to keep. No more scraps of textedit docs here and there in your hard drive.

Stowe Boyd · Answer

Best Markdown app

pening · Answer

new way to read & write markdown.

JoshTodd · Answer

Writing in Bear is a sublime experience... This is one of most well-designed and delightful apps I've ever used, both on the Mac and on mobile. Moved from Evernote and never looked back.

Tiffany Tso · Answer

Bear is clean and simple to use. Everything is tracked with hashtags, which makes it really easy to cross reference notes. I use it for my programming notes because the code snippet functionality is 💯. It also embeds links nicely and uses Markdown, so it's basically no-fuss formatting. You can save backups and import/export notes. IMO the only downfall is there's no other organization to your notes other than tags, so it can get kinda cray. Currently free, but costs money to get different app colors and sync with other devices.

Victor Bous · Answer

Really awesome Notes App, but why the simplest thing ever (device synchronization) is in paid plan. Not fare 😔

Ga Huy · Answer

I switch from Evernote to Bear, highly recommend (y)

Britain Green · Answer

Moved from Evernote and love the simplicity.

Joe Belsterling · Answer

Quickest / easiest to use notepad I've seen. Super minimalistic.

Nick Bertolino · Answer

Its a great writing tool, and Evernote replacement.  You could also argue its a decent Wunderlist replacement, if you could live without dates.

Arun Sathiya · Answer

Notebook by Zoho is a neat pick! Smooth and beautiful.

Ramon · Answer

Beautiful and robust

Adrian Oprea · Answer

I use Hemingway in conjunction with iA Writer. I'm a fan of Hemingway because it improves my writing style and makes sure I don't ramble a lot (like I did in this sentence).

Nick Vivion · Answer

This is absolutely the best. I love it!

BrianBest · Answer

Its really the best for writing content for the web and ad tech engines

NaveenKumar Namachivayam · Answer

You can try Hemingway app.

Mike Way · Answer

I use Bear on IOS for quick notes, but Byword on MacOS for short form (Medium), Ulysses for long form and for chapters and papers finish with LaTEX. They all, except LaTEX, provide a distraction free interface and access to various MD flavors. Tend to use the standard MD.

Kevin Nguyen · Answer

Take a look for Word 2016 :)

J Keith Hall · Answer

I like letterspace because it's a minimal distraction free interface that easily shares with Evernote and syncs via icloud with ios app

Manoj Nayak · Answer

Recently got focussed for Mac, fell in love with it. Been writing twice as much. This app comes free in the one month trial of setapp.

Answer

Been using this App for months now. Got their lifetime subscription, can highly recommend 💯 Especially if English is not your first language 👍

Ruslan Girichev · Answer

Love this app! It helps me with learning English by writing. Just wish to have one working on iOS.

Laura Anca · Answer

I love this too — great for all types of writing. You can get it as an app for Mac, use in browser, and use the extension. I wish the extension worked with Hootsuite and Google Docs too — that's my only complaint.

Answer

I love Grammarly! Easy to use and if you upgrade to paid subscription there's a lot more value in it.

ronsheridan · Answer

I have been using the Free version for some time and recently upgraded to PRO. It has made a positive impact on my writing. Well worth trying.

Michael Quirke · Answer

Main benefit of this that I've found over the others is simply how it looks. Minimalist, sure, but somehow the line spacing and system font combo is just right - swoon-worthy - so you can feel really good getting on and typing.

Only disbenefit is that it's not iOS app as well (as far as I know), so you can end up with your pieces stuck on your desktop rather than editable on your phone on the go.

Matthew John · Answer

No nonsense text editor. I use it daily for writing email drafts, blog posts and maintaining to-do lists.

Mees Boeijen · Answer

I always use Sublime to write. It's distraction free mode is amazing.

Ahmad Awais ⚡ · Answer

I too use, Sublime for writing content.

Yann · Answer

Sublime isn't only for code, it's also great whenever you want to write large pieces of text.

Rakeeb Rafeek · Answer

Check this out too! :)

Julien L. Pham, MD · Answer

I can't think of a productivity app I would recommend more. Convenient hotkeys call-up, clean simple interface, super flexible.

Beau Gunderson · Answer

For taking notes I haven't found anything better than nvALT; it makes search a primary function.

Micah Cooper · Answer

I made my own styles and make fantastic-looking documents with it.

H.Murchison · Answer

First got Marked and didn't really know what to do with it until I dug in and found that it made writing in Markdown feel dynamic.  I really dislike writing in markdown and switching preview on/off.  I don't find myself distracted by having Marked open and previewing my devastatingly witty prose live.  The information it provides is nice as well as I get them with *any* text editor.  Now if I could only find a keyboard worth risking carpal tunnel for.

Julia Petryk · Answer

That's an excellent tool for both - coders and bloggers.

Marc Abrams · Answer

simple and fast, great support for extended markdown tags

Merzmensch Kosmopol · Answer

I am using this nonlinear writing tool for my academic textes, but also for novels. Very intuitive and has fine functions like labeling, card view mode (for rearranging), storyboard mode etc. Actually I only use this one.

Answer

Scrivener is the king of all writing apps. Robust organization, exporting, and formatting features, as well as deep version control embedded into the software. Perfect for writers of all kinds. I use it for blogging, novel writing, content marketing...everything except social media copy.

Mark Anderson · Answer

Easily the best collection of tools for writing on the Mac. I'm a little surprised it's this low. Combine it with nValt and you're cooking with fire.

tyelmene · Answer

I'm sure that many of these text/writing applications and online services are useful for specific purposes and work conditions - (I use several of these for specific writing and coding tasks myself).  And, I'm certain that each of these serve the needs of people who have cause to write this and that from time to time just fine.  For these folks, the tools mentioned here may be simpler or more attractive or accessible or functional in a way that pleases or fits a fixed work process or two, but...  for a "writer," (like a person who writes for a living), there is only one comprehensively capable "writing work tool" for the Mac; and that's Scrivener.  Scrivener is a writing work platform without equal.  If you haven't tried it... you're missing it.

Chris Chinchilla · Answer

It needs some setup, but I have it working really nicely for (technical) writing - https://hackernoon.com/making-atom-even-more-awesome-my-setup-e7a89969a876

Geoff Schaadt · Answer

Wildly flexible and configurable for those who are inclined, and especially great when paired with Marked 2.
http://marked2app.com

Manju Hariharan · Answer

Have used this and found it useful

Tyler Moore · Answer

About two years ago, I needed a new tool to organize my fiction writing. My previous system was a bunch of .txt files in various folders - hardly ideal! I tested Evernote, Ulysses, and Scriviner.

I found Evernote to be the best combination of useful features and gentle learning curve. Still using it every day, still love it.

Constantine Nicolaou · Answer

I am surprised this is not on top of the list. Quip is a wonderful piece of software, designed beautifully and has a lot of powerful collaboration and writing features. I've been a user for almost a year and never looked for an alternative app again. Whether you're using the mobile or desktop app, the UX and UK are beautifully designed.

Victor Bous · Answer

Apple Pages is great. Why? Because it's a native MacOS application and works very well. It has a simple design and integrates with your Apple account. Isn't it awesome? Surely, You can say that Microsoft Word is the same, but if you have several Apple products and all you want is to write, Pages can cover your needs.

Valentin Lemort · Answer

Immersive experience.

Ryan Shook · Answer

My go-to tool for reducing distractions and knocking out a rough draft.

Valentin Lemort · Answer

Smart and minimalist. Such a pleasure to use.

Xiaomeng Cui · Answer

Auto sync, clean layout and easy interaction. Once written, you can get access to your article from anywhere and from any devices.

This Tenqyu Life · Answer

I enjoy writing directly into Medium ( http://medium.com/ ) for my posts. Usually they range from 500-1200 words. The interface works for me and I can not bound to a specific computer to continue my work.

Matthew Blode · Answer

It is an incredibly simple writing environment with a focus on collaboration. I highly recommend it over Google Docs or Word

Adrian Oprea · Answer

I use this for distraction-free editing and because it plays well with my iCloud Drive / Google Drive.