A clean Mac notepad for people who want to write things down without launching a word processor or installing a code editor
A clean Mac notepad for people who want to write things down without launching a word processor or installing a code editor.
Why NotepadX?
TextEdit is fine for a quick scribble but it doesn't know what a .swift or .py file is, has no tabs, and can't preview markdown. VS Code can do everything — and asks you to manage workspaces, install extensions, and accept a sidebar full of things you didn't ask for. There's a quiet gap in the middle.
NotepadX fills it. It opens in under a second, restores the tabs you had last time, and treats whatever you type as a first-class document — code, markdown, plain text, all the same.
What it does?
• Tabs that remember. Every tab is its own document with its own scroll position and cursor. Closing the app doesn't lose your place.
• Real syntax highlighting for the languages you actually use — Swift, Rust, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, Ruby, Java, Kotlin, C/C++, JSON, YAML, HTML, CSS, SQL, and more. Colours match VS Code so anything you copy out still looks right.
• Live markdown preview. Open a .md file and a rendered preview appears alongside the source. Tables, task lists, code blocks, links, blockquotes — full GFM. Switch the theme and both panes follow.
• Find that highlights everything. ⌘F opens an Apple-style sheet with a match count, Match Case toggle, and yellow highlights painted on every occurrence in the editor. The current match shows in blue. Just like a browser.
• Smart paired brackets. Type (, [, {, ", or ` — the closing character is there. Select text first to wrap it. Backspace inside an empty pair clears both halves.
• Print and export. Print, Print Preview, or export markdown to PDF, Word (.rtf), or plain text. Plain-text export strips markdown markup cleanly.
• The small things. Auto-trim trailing whitespace on save, external file-change detection with "Keep Mine" / "Reload from Disk", Recent Files menu, word wrap toggle, ⌘+/⌘- zoom, light and dark themes, line numbers, the modified-dot on the tab.
What it isn't?
Not a word processor — there's no bold/italic toolbar; use markdown if you want formatting. Not a code IDE — no autocomplete, no language servers, no debugger. Not a notes app — no tags, no notebooks, no graph view. Files go where you put them.
The simplest place that knows how to highlight Python and render a markdown table.
| # | Name | Price | Currency | Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Item | ¥ 0 | CNY | 中国 |
