Novalist - Novel Writing
The workspace for novelists
Free
Novalist is a writing environment built for novelists — a single, focused workspace where you plan your story, build your world, and write the manuscript, instead of bending a general-purpose word processor to the task.
WRITE
A clean editor with real formatting, paragraph styles, inline comments, and footnotes. Focus Mode hides everything but the page; the split editor lets you work on two scenes at once. Every scene auto-saves with its own snapshot history, so you can compare versions and revert a single scene without disturbing the rest of the book. Smart quotes, em-dashes, and dialogue punctuation are handled as you type, with presets for ten languages, alongside grammar and spelling checks and live word count, reading time, and readability.
BUILD YOUR WORLD
A full Codex keeps your characters, locations, items, and lore in one place — with images, relationships, custom fields, and long-form notes. Define your own entity types, such as factions, spells, vehicles, or races, each with its own fields. Character details can change per act, chapter, or scene, so someone can age, move, or transform across the story without losing their earlier state.
PLAN AND SEE THE SHAPE
Plot Grid: toggle which scenes belong to each plotline in a spreadsheet view.
Timeline: acts, chapters, scenes, and events in chronological order.
In-world Calendar: place scenes on the dates they happen in your story.
Relationships: a living map of who knows whom, with automatic inverse roles.
ORGANIZE WITHOUT LOCK-IN
Work in multi-book projects with a shared World Bible for a series. Chapters carry status, acts, and colors; Smart Lists save the scene queries you return to. And your project is simply plain files on disk — add, rename, move, or delete scenes in Finder and Novalist keeps up. Your writing stays in a format you can read forever.
MAKE IT YOURS
A themeable interface, keyboard-driven navigation with a command palette, and an extension system for adding new tools.
Novalist keeps your manuscript on your Mac, in files you own. Write the book.
Several bug fixes
The developer, Dominik Goblirsch, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Dominik Goblirsch
- Size
- 175.2 MB
- Category
- Productivity
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 15.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 15.0 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 15.0 or later. - iPod touch
Requires iOS 15.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 12.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 Dominik Goblirsch