CotEditor

Name: CotEditor
Rating: 0 (0 reviews)
Author: Mineko IMANISHI

Lightweight plain text editor

Only for Mac

Free · In‑App Purchases

Ages

4+
Years
Category

Productivity
Developer

Mineko IMANISHI
Language

EN
+ 14 More
Size

30
MB

Mac

CotEditor is a light-weight, neat, yet powerful text editor designed for editing plain-text files such as web pages (HTML, CSS), program source codes (Python, Ruby, Perl, etc.), structured texts (Markdown, Textile, TeX, etc.), or any other kind of plain-text. Just For Mac The application is exactly made for macOS. CotEditor looks and behaves just as macOS applications should. It means, you already know how to use it even on the first launch. There are no complicated setting files that require geek knowledge so that you can access all your settings including syntax definitions and themes from a standard settings window. Quick, Easy, and Powerful CotEditor launches so quickly that you can write your text immediately when you want to. It's perfect for you to write a draft version of your document or a scratch code. The simply organized user interface doesn't disturb your task. However, at the same time, CotEditor is neither software only for beginners nor a typical minimal “zen-style” editor. It is fully customizable. There are, of course, syntax highlighting for various languages, find and replace with the regular expression, auto-indentation, command-line tool, and lots of other deep functions. You can also easily write your own macro in your favorite languages. Key Features • Syntax highlighting including more than 50 preset languages • Powerful find and replace with the regular expression • Auto-backup with/without overwriting actual document files • Line numbers view • Live character/word/line count • Handling file encoding and line endings with care • Auto-generated outline menu for fast navigation • Character inspector that shows the zoomed glyph and Unicode information • Vertical text layout mode • Various Unicode normalizations • Semi-transparent window • Command-line tool • Scriptable with your favorite language • CJK-languages friendly Terms of Service: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://coteditor.com/privacy

Ratings & Reviews

This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.

Really fast for editing small files
09/19/2018

gileslewis3
This is the fastest editor I have seen for working with small text files. I love the clean, simple interface; and especially the speed with which it launches. However, I am giving it 4 stars instead of 5 for two reasons:(1) I think the "Enable Auto Save with Versions” feature is a bit dangerous. I did a Find to search for text, but instead of hitting “Find All”, I hit “Replace All” by mistake. I could not figure out how to undo my change, so I closed the main window thinking that I had not saved my file. But the file was auto-saved with the unintentional change. I now know that I could have closed the Find window, at which point “Undo Replace All” would have appeared as an option under the Edit menu. However, I think that “Enable Auto Save with Versions” is not a good feature for novices. The default setting should be false.(2) I would really like to see a “Whole Word” checkbox in Find window.

Developer Response
Thank you for the kind review. In response to your second request, I've added "Match only whole Word" option to find panel (in "Advanced find options" via the gear button in the find panel) on CotEditor 3.6.1. Regarding the first comment, we will not change the default setting of Auto Save because it is nowadays the standard behavior of macOS applications. Please just turn it off if you want to avoid.
Really fast for editing small files
09/19/2018

gileslewis3

This is the fastest editor I have seen for working with small text files. I love the clean, simple interface; and especially the speed with which it launches. However, I am giving it 4 stars instead of 5 for two reasons:(1) I think the "Enable Auto Save with Versions” feature is a bit dangerous. I did a Find to search for text, but instead of hitting “Find All”, I hit “Replace All” by mistake. I could not figure out how to undo my change, so I closed the main window thinking that I had not saved my file. But the file was auto-saved with the unintentional change. I now know that I could have closed the Find window, at which point “Undo Replace All” would have appeared as an option under the Edit menu. However, I think that “Enable Auto Save with Versions” is not a good feature for novices. The default setting should be false.(2) I would really like to see a “Whole Word” checkbox in Find window.
Developer Response 10/05/2018
Thank you for the kind review. In response to your second request, I've added "Match only whole Word" option to find panel (in "Advanced find options" via the gear button in the find panel) on CotEditor 3.6.1. Regarding the first comment, we will not change the default setting of Auto Save because it is nowadays the standard behavior of macOS applications. Please just turn it off if you want to avoid.
Perfect General-Purpose Text Editor
04/04/2019

kibigo!
This app is perfect for when you need something more fully-featured than TextEdit, but don't need a complicated project manager like Atom or similar. The major selling points for me are Unicode support (the ‘Inspect Character’ and ‘Input in Unicode Hex’ commands are extremely helpful, and greatly reduce the need for character escapes in your documents) and the fact that it plays well with proportional fonts (many text editors have bugs when you use a font that isn't monospace—not so with CotEditor!).If I had to list drawbacks, the syntax highlighting is not as fully-featured as you might find in something like Atom. But I've been using CotEditor for several months and never found it missing a feature that I needed for my work, and it is refreshing the extent to which things that one might need to download a plugin for in Atom or Brackets just come built right in.
Perfect General-Purpose Text Editor
04/04/2019

kibigo!

This app is perfect for when you need something more fully-featured than TextEdit, but don't need a complicated project manager like Atom or similar. The major selling points for me are Unicode support (the ‘Inspect Character’ and ‘Input in Unicode Hex’ commands are extremely helpful, and greatly reduce the need for character escapes in your documents) and the fact that it plays well with proportional fonts (many text editors have bugs when you use a font that isn't monospace—not so with CotEditor!).If I had to list drawbacks, the syntax highlighting is not as fully-featured as you might find in something like Atom. But I've been using CotEditor for several months and never found it missing a feature that I needed for my work, and it is refreshing the extent to which things that one might need to download a plugin for in Atom or Brackets just come built right in.
Extremely useful and valuable
11/28/2021

1wcb
On the Mac, I found I needed "something" to convert then transfer straight text between different Mac apps and found that CotEditor does exactly that with ease. - As a general review for normal people's uses, it is a light weight, full featured editor. It covers all the bases with character substitution and can even do spell checking (if that is what you want). However, it is not a full featured word processor as CotEditor is not designed to be one, it is an editor.. - FWIW: I am an ancient unix system administrator and have used VI (text based editor) my entire life. This will not replace VI but I find I use it more and more for general note taking, quick scripts, etc in the Mac graphical enviroment. - CotEditor is great and there is a reason it has an extremely high score on the App Store.
Extremely useful and valuable
11/28/2021

1wcb

On the Mac, I found I needed "something" to convert then transfer straight text between different Mac apps and found that CotEditor does exactly that with ease. - As a general review for normal people's uses, it is a light weight, full featured editor. It covers all the bases with character substitution and can even do spell checking (if that is what you want). However, it is not a full featured word processor as CotEditor is not designed to be one, it is an editor.. - FWIW: I am an ancient unix system administrator and have used VI (text based editor) my entire life. This will not replace VI but I find I use it more and more for general note taking, quick scripts, etc in the Mac graphical enviroment. - CotEditor is great and there is a reason it has an extremely high score on the App Store.
My favorite text editor
12/22/2020

W. Chang
This app works well. It has nicely organized preferences and menu and things are straight forward. There are quite a few glitches though.1) It handles small files very fast but cannot deal with large files as efficiently. It takes at least twice the time TextMate does to open a file that is larger than 20MB.2) It hangs frequently when pasting a large block of text.3) Its URL detection is very handy but doesn't always work. URLs in a pasted text may or may not be recognized. After typing in a URL, hitting ENTER/RETURN doesn't make it clickable, you have to hit SPACE. Also, when you change the middle of the URL the link is gone and going to the end to press space is the only way to bring it back.4) Mouse click to follow the link is not the best design. A single click is used to place the cursor. Most other editor uses double click and it makes much more sense. 5) Although there are >50 preset languages. It lacks support for some "unpopular" but common language, like Pascal, batch, registry. It seems that there is no easy way to add your own language.6) Pasting can be very confusing because the page scrolls up and down randomly after pasting. It is very frustrating because it takes time to locate the cursor, and any key stroke makes the page scroll again.BTW, as a user that uses both Mac and Win, I found the way Mac text editors handle drag and drop of files straight. In Windows, a dropped file will be opened, and in Mac its filename will be inserted in the current file. I find the later way useless (unless one is working with shell scripts). Is it possible to make the Windows way an option?
My favorite text editor
12/22/2020

W. Chang

This app works well. It has nicely organized preferences and menu and things are straight forward. There are quite a few glitches though.1) It handles small files very fast but cannot deal with large files as efficiently. It takes at least twice the time TextMate does to open a file that is larger than 20MB.2) It hangs frequently when pasting a large block of text.3) Its URL detection is very handy but doesn't always work. URLs in a pasted text may or may not be recognized. After typing in a URL, hitting ENTER/RETURN doesn't make it clickable, you have to hit SPACE. Also, when you change the middle of the URL the link is gone and going to the end to press space is the only way to bring it back.4) Mouse click to follow the link is not the best design. A single click is used to place the cursor. Most other editor uses double click and it makes much more sense. 5) Although there are >50 preset languages. It lacks support for some "unpopular" but common language, like Pascal, batch, registry. It seems that there is no easy way to add your own language.6) Pasting can be very confusing because the page scrolls up and down randomly after pasting. It is very frustrating because it takes time to locate the cursor, and any key stroke makes the page scroll again.BTW, as a user that uses both Mac and Win, I found the way Mac text editors handle drag and drop of files straight. In Windows, a dropped file will be opened, and in Mac its filename will be inserted in the current file. I find the later way useless (unless one is working with shell scripts). Is it possible to make the Windows way an option?

Improvements - Create a new document from a UNIX script only when output is available, using the %%%{CotEditorXOutput=NewDocument}%%% option. - Improve overall stability. Fixes - Fix an issue where the default file extension for Markdown documents was .txt instead of .md. - Fix an issue where snippets were not included in the settings export. - Fix an issue where settings imported from a settings archive incorrectly included filename extensions. - Fix an issue where invisible characters were not printed even if the “Print Invisible” option in the print settings was enabled. - Fix descriptions in the user guide for UNIX scripting. - Address a potential crash in the file browser when creating, duplicating, or moving files. - Address a potential crash when a document was modified by another process.

Version 6.2.5

14h ago

Data Not Collected

The developer does not collect any data from this app.

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Supported Features
- VoiceOver
- Voice Control
- Dark Interface
- Differentiate Without Color Alone
- Sufficient Contrast
- Reduced Motion

Information

Seller
Size
Category
Compatibility
Languages
Age Rating
In-App Purchases
Copyright

Developer Website

Privacy Policy

CotEditor

Lightweight plain text editor

Ratings & Reviews

What’s New

Version 6.2.5

App Privacy

Data Not Collected

Accessibility

Supported Features

VoiceOver

Voice Control

Dark Interface

Differentiate Without Color Alone

Sufficient Contrast

Reduced Motion

Information