I write a lot. Not only am I a professional writer for Photography Life, I also just like writing. For a long time, I used Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code because it’s a pretty decent editor. However, due to the push of AI into the editor and Microsoft’s heavy support of AI, I abandoned VS Code and I will never use it again.
Here, I’ve decided to make a list of alternative editors here that I’ve tried and like. The only rule is that all editors that promote AI are excluded. First, I’ll include the candidates that I like and use occasionally. Then, I’ll tell you about the winner.
1. CotEditor
My favourite editor for MacOS so far is CotEditor. It’s a very simple editor for MacOS. Recently, the developer added one crucial feature for me, which is opening a folder as a project:
It’s minimalistic, allows scrolling past the bottom, and has a spell-checking feature although irritatingly, it keeps returning to the system language upon restart. You can select any type of font and change the linespacing, too.
The only downside for me is that it has a blinking cursor.
2. TextMate
TextMate is a great editor. It’s simple and got “open folder” support. It’s also got support for various programming languages. The only downside for programmers is that it doesn’t have split pane support, but it’s not bad for writing.
One thing that bothered me slightly is that you can’t get rid of the “gutter” (where the line numbers reside), even if you disable the line numbers.
3. LiteXL
LiteXL is definitely a cool, minimalist editor for MacOS. It’s got all the basics like line-wrapping. It’s also got the ability to open a folder as a project, which is great. I like the small footprint and speed, too. I think for some, LiteXL would be a great text editor.
There are two reasons why I don’t use it, though. The first is that the spell-checking plugin is horrible. The graphical underlining of misspelled words does not work correctly, and the underlining isn’t perfectly aligned with the misspelled words, especially if you use a non-monospaced font. Also, using system fonts is a pain with LiteXL, and you have to use a program called fontconfig to do it. That’s a showstopper for me. Finally, unlike CotEditor, it looks a bit non-native for MacOS.
It’s still worth trying, especially if you’re just going to use it for programming, but it’s not ideal for writing prose like I do.
4. Vim
Vim is one of my favourite editors for MacOS, and I use it with iTerm2, which allows you to define left and right margins of the terminal so that you can easily edit in full-screen mode and still have a narrow column.
The downside of Vim is that first, it has limited mouse support, especially in the terminal. Of course with Vim, you may not even need a mouse. But second, although the latest version of Vim supports scroll by visual line rather than actual line, it’s a bit finnicky. Also, Vim in the terminal only supports monospace fonts, which can be tiresome if you don’t want to write in a monospace font. I often write first drafts in Vim, but sometimes for editing I prefer the convenience of smooth scrolling with a mouse, which is why I use CotEditor to revise most of the time.
5. TextEdit.app
MacOS actually comes with a default text editor called TextEdit.app. It’s a basic thing that at least has tabs, font selection, spell-checking, and a light and dark theme.
It could be all you need. But it does not have the ability to open a folder as a project nor can you change the line spacing. Plus, the dark theme’s background is too dark for me. It’s worth looking into but not as good as CotEditor or TextMate.
Winner: Sublime Text
The winner for my main editor is now Sublime Text. It’s not free and costs $99USD, so a little expensive. But in my opinion, it not only looks the nicest, but it also has some crucial features that most of the other editors don’t, such as a solid, non-blinking cursor. It’s also fast. One thing that was a bit strange about CotEditor that I tried is that if I selected several words and then pressed “Backspace” to delete them, there was a perceptible delay between the keystroke and the deletion. Sublime does not have such problems.
I also like Vim a lot but it’s just not that good for writing long text and revising it due to it’s inferior line-scrolling support, even with “set smoothscroll”.
A bonus is that it is made by a small company in Australia rather than a horrible big-tech firm that I hate.
List of Editors that I Do NOT Recommend
- Atom: Yes, it still runs but it’s very slow and no longer maintained.
- Emacs: Ugly interface, and it also froze on me when going through the tutorial. I’d rather write on stone tablets.
- Any editor that promotes AI. I won’t even list them here because I don’t want to promote them. I hope all companies that promote AI go bankrupt and destitute.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed my personalized list of editors for MacOS, which is likely more complete that the generic SEO spam out there. Or at least, it’s more opinionated. If you didn’t like this post, try writing on paper instead.