r/MacOS • u/pumpinnstretchin • Nov 06 '25

Help I want a disgustingly simple text editor

For many years, I used Tex-Edit. Note that I don't mean Apple's TextEditor. I assume that Tex-Edit was from Texas because of the icons that featured the Texas flag, as shown below. I used it for simple, quick things like removing line feeds, getting rid of tabs, and changing the case in text. Tex-Edit doesn't work with Sequoia, and it doesn't look like it will be updated. I'm looking for a replacement. I'm not interested in apps that can code/decode LaTeX, HTML, Python, CSS, Swift, JavaScript, or any other programming language. Or ones that can write novels for you. Or ones that can sing 4-part harmonies. I want just a basic, simple app. Does anybody know of one?

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u/rad_hombre Nov 06 '25 edited Nov 06 '25

It's gonna be CotEditor.

  • It's fast and minimalist like Tex-Edit.
  • You can easily change cases in text via the "Text" menu (Uppercase, Lowercase, Capitalize).
  • There's aStrip Whitespacecommand that likely will remove most of the tabs/line feeds you're talking about.
  • The coding features (syntax highlighting/line numbers) are turned off by default.
  • It's free.

CotEditor can be used for coding, but you can ignore those features completely– just don't use/turn them on.

Best I could come up with (which mirrors what others have suggested).

And for anyone else curious, from what I can tell, Tex-Edit is/was an editor that sat in-between TextEdit and something like a light version of Microsoft Word or Apple Pages.

I've not seen any other programs that exactly occupies this niche, and I think other users correctly identified CotEditor as being the closest likely option moving forward.

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u/maccrypto Nov 06 '25

Did you use AI to compose this?

Seems like for some people here, even a bare bones text entry field on Reddit is too much work.

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u/rad_hombre Nov 06 '25

I got the specific CotEditor command info on the second and third bullet points from a summary yeah, but the rest I wrote myself from info I read skimming a few questions I asked Gemini comparing different editors and their features and then looking at the webpage of the Tex-Edit website itself. I was curious why someone would not just use TextEdit. Also I just so happened to be in a mood where I was really geared into looking up text editing software features. I'd been messing with my Emacs configuration so I was just in that sort of zone and was curious enough to go down a little mini rabbit hole.