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Text editors are an important part of our daily life and we use it regularly. From note taking to programming, there is a wide range of things we do on text editors. Almost all operating systems come with a pre-installed Text editor. Windows has Notepad, Mac has Text Edit and iOS has Notes. These text editors serve the same purpose.
When we talk about text editors, we generally focus on text editing and ignore the document editing thing. Yes, both are not the same. In this article, I am writing about 10 best text editors for Mac OS. Most of these are not just text editors but code editors as well.
Best Text Editors for Mac
1. Brackets
Brackets is a free and open source text editor by Adobe. I don’t think Adobe needs any introduction. The notable feature of the Brackets is called as “Extract”. This cool feature allows you to grab different fonts, measurements, colors and gradients from any PSD file into a clean CSS ready for web usage. It also supports extensions.
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It supports W3C Validation, Beautify for JS, HTML and CSS, Git Integration and more. So, it is more useful as a code editor than a text editor. So, you must try this if you are looking for a good code editor for Mac OS.
2. BBEdit
BBEdit is another popular text editor for Mac devices. Along with simple text editing, it also supports rich text editing and HTML. This text editor has also been developed for developers to give then advanced editing, search and replace options. It allows users to command files, folders and servers from a single software.
It offers several nice features including grep pattern matching, search and replace across multiple files, syntax coloring for numerous programming languages, code folding, FTP and SFTP open and save.
It comes with various packages and you can pick one based on your neds.
3. TextWrangler
TextWrangler is also a popular text editor for Mac users. It is considered to be the lightweight version of BBEdit we added in the list just before this. It is from the same development company.
Unlike other text editors in the list, TextWrangler focuses on people who would need a general editing. So, it is not a programming tool or editor but a text editor. You think it as Notepad++.
TextWrangler is available for free. So don’t forget to download and try it. In case you were looking for mac text editor for coding , this one should be considered.
4. Text Mate Editor
Text Mate Editor is another nice text editor for Mac OS. It comes with neat and easy to use GUI and supports code editing. It is one of the known mac text editor for coding. It offers features like search, replace, column selection, word completion from recent documents, auto-indentation, support for regular expressions, Foldable code blocks and more. It supports more than 50 languages.
It also in incorporates full Xcode support and allows users to build Xcode projects within TextMate. You can download this text editor for free and try it in your Mac OS.
5. Sublime Text
Sublime Text is a popular code editor among developers. Along with simple text editing, it comes with powerful code editing capability. It claims to have the fastest search engine and offers impressive features. This tool is also considered to be the best text editor for programming on Mac OS.
It also claims to come with powerful plugin API, that makes it highly customizable to suit the needs of anyone using it.
This tool is paid, but you can enjoy the free version of the tool that offers unlimited usage with limited features.
6. Atom Text Editor
Atom Text Editor is new but advanced text editor for Mac. It has already proven itself to be powerful. The tool is a free and open source text editor for Mac OS.
Notable features of the tool are the fuzzy search of text, multiple pane support for editing, file system browser and code folding. It supports cross-platform editing, has a Built-in package manager, offers Smart autocompletion, and more. With support to packages, you can get new features and functionality easily. It also comes with four UI and eight syntax themes in both dark and light colors. It is also considered to be the best text editor for mac python.
7. Textastic
Textastic is a cross-platform text editor that is also available for iPad and iPhone. It comes with cloud syncing. So, you can easily switch your device and still keep working on the same text from exactly where you left off. This is the reason this is the best suitable for on-the-go edits.
It supports more than 80 coding and markup languages. It supports code completion for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, C, and Objective-C. This tool is paid and you need to purchase it from App Store.
8. UltraEdit
UltraEdit is also a notable code editor cum text editor. It comes with editing capabilities for HTML, PHP, javascript, C/C++, Perl, Python, and a wide variety of other programming languages. This tool also features syntax highlighting, file sorting, data sorting, block editing, and has integrated ftp client as well as SSH/telnet support.
This tool is paid.
9. MacVim
MacVim is the free text editor for Mac OS. It comes with support to standard shortcuts of OS X keyboard. It allows you to choose from any transparent background themes available and supports full screen mode to give you distraction free editing. It also supports multiple windows and tabs.
The MacVim is available for free to download from GitHub repository.
10. CodeRunner 2
CodeRunner 2 is also a premium text editor for Mac. It is a hardcore “code” editor that doesn’t really suit well for people who’re just looking for prose writing. So, consider this only if you need something for managing your code. It supports TextMate theme to give you most customizable options.
This tool supports advanced code-completion for most of the languages. It can run code in 23 languages out-of-the-box, and this support can be extended easily to any other languages. So, this one is also a good mac text editor for coding .
Final Words
There are many other nice text editors and code editors available for Mac devices. But this long list of text editors for Mac has already covered most of the text editors you should know about. These are suitable Not just for normal text editing but for hardcore code editing. Try any of these.
If you want to recommend any text editor to be the part of this list, you can comment below.
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