Type: FREE Made for: Mac. Exclusive for Macs, the TextMate is a free text editor that comes with a superb GUI and command console. The tool comes packed with features that make it a blessing not just for the pros but also for those who have just ventured into programming. The simple text editor or “text box” lets you input the data in it and gives the marked indication for every wrong part. Spelling is marked with red color and diction and grammar suggestions are marked green.

Text editors have been a crucial part of every computing system in history, and they’re also the tools that many, many people use every day to build the services, apps, and written-word that we love. At its core, a text editor does what it says on the tin: it allows you to edit text. But wait, you say, I already have a way to edit text on my Mac. Maybe it’s Pages or Microsoft Word, or perhaps you use an online option, like Google Docs or Dropbox Paper. However, what separates these tools from a text editor, and what makes a text editor so compelling to a lot of people, is that a text editor removes almost every distraction between you and the text. There are no formatting toolbars, no adjusting the margins — just you and your code or words. For writing in HTML, CSS, or other programming languages, this is a necessity.

For someone who isn’t writing code but still generates a large amount of copy, a text editor can be where you start your writing. What makes a good text editor? Few topics start such heated debates as what makes a good text editor.

A common misconception in the Mac community is that Mac’s operating system is more secure than others. Enterprise rental policies. Even still, when sharing is enabled or remote control applications are installed, Mac OS X faces a variety of security threats, whether these have been exploited or not. While this might be have been true in certain cases, security on the Mac has always still been a crucial issue. With the release of OS X 10.11, the operating system is taking large strides in getting even more secure.

The problem with declaring any one editor better than another is that every editor we mention today is seemingly infinitely customizable. You can tweak, bolt on, or remove any array of features until any of the following applications fit your workflow perfectly.

Additionally, once someone has spent more than a few months using a specific text editor, the muscle memory for certain actions or keyboard shortcuts becomes so second-nature that switching to any other editor can be as difficult and foreign as switching to a new operating system. That said, a good text editor has to have enough features to be adaptable to your workflow, but not so many that it steers itself toward any one usage. Editing text encompasses a wide range of activities. How do you design an app that will potentially be used by both programmer and screenwriter? Good text editors will get out of your way, but they never hide functionality too far out of reach — this means our top pick needs to be an editor that’s well-designed and approachable by beginners without stifling professional users. Finally, this review is about the best text editor for macOS, not the best macOS application that’s also a text editor. Atom is our top pick for most people, but its design follows a different set of principles than those laid out in.