Volt
Guide
Notepad++ for Mac: what to use instead
Notepad++ is Windows-only, and there is no Mac version. People who move to a Mac miss it for very specific reasons — the encodings menu, column editing, Find in Files, the line operations — and a list of editors that do not have those is not an answer. Here is what does.
First, the direct options
Run it anyway. Notepad++ runs under Wine or CrossOver, and some people do exactly that. It works, and it looks and behaves like a Windows program on a Mac: no Finder integration, no Mac shortcuts, and fonts that are not quite right.
The native editors people usually suggest are BBEdit, Sublime Text, Visual Studio Code, CotEditor and TextMate. Each is good at something: BBEdit has decades of text processing, Sublime Text is fast, VS Code has an extension for everything, CotEditor and TextMate are free and light. What they each lack is some part of what made Notepad++ Notepad++ — usually the encodings.
The Notepad++ habits, one by one
| In Notepad++ | In Volt |
|---|---|
| Encoding menu, Convert to UTF-8 | 220 character sets, detected on opening and named in the status bar; pick one to re-read the bytes or to convert — and Compare Character Sets… shows every reading side by side. |
| EOL Conversion | LF, CRLF and CR — and NEL, LS, PS and three more — from the status bar, with mixed files reported. |
| Column mode (Alt-drag) | ⌥-drag for a rectangular block; typing, deleting and pasting at every line at once, as one undo. |
| Multi-editing | ⌥-click adds a cursor, ⌘D selects the next occurrence, ⌃⇧↑/↓ add one above or below. |
| Find in Files | Find in Project (⇧⌘F) with include and exclude patterns, and Replace in Project that counts first and writes second. |
| Mark with five styles | Mark All Matches, in five colours that stay while other searches come and go. |
| Bookmarks | Bookmarks with notes, that move with the text — and Bookmark Shown Lines for a whole filter's worth. |
| Line operations | Sort (natural order too), remove duplicates or empty lines, join, split at a delimiter, reverse. |
| Change History margin | Change bars against the saved file — and against Git — with a faded bar for what this session changed and saved. |
| Compare plugin | Compare with File… and Compare with Revision…, two panes, rows aligned. |
| Hex editor plugin | Built in (⌃⌘X), beside the text, editable, one undo with it. |
| NppFTP | Built in: FTP, FTP over TLS and SFTP, with drag and drop and sync. |
| Function List, Document Map | The outline sidebar (⌃⌘O) and the minimap. |
| Case conversion, hashes | Eleven cases from UPPER to snake_case; twenty-one hash functions. |
| Huge files | A 4.23 GB log opens in 2 milliseconds. |
What Volt does not have
Plugins. There is no plugin system. Language modes and themes are plain files you can write, formatters, linters and language servers are commands you configure, and the things Notepad++ needs plugins for — compare, hex, FTP — are built in. A general macro recorder is not there either; Vim mode records macros, and Batch Replace and Filter Through Command cover most of what macros are used for. Windows — Volt is a Mac application only.
Things Notepad++ users tend to like
- Unsaved work survives quitting — and so does undo.
- Files off a mainframe, in EBCDIC, open as text: 62 code pages.
- A
.gz,.bz2,.zstor.xzopens as the text inside it. - Invisible characters are shown as what they are, and Clean Up Document… takes out the ones you tick.
Questions
Is there a Notepad++ for Mac?
No. Notepad++ is written for Windows and there is no macOS version. It can be run under Wine or CrossOver, or replaced with a native editor.
What is the closest thing to Notepad++ on a Mac?
It depends which part you miss. For encodings, line endings, column editing, Find in Files, line operations, compare, hex and FTP in one native app, Volt covers the list; the guide above goes through it habit by habit.
Does Volt have column mode?
Yes: ⌥-drag makes a rectangular block, and typing, deleting and pasting happen on every line at once, as one undo step.
Can Volt convert a file to UTF-8 like Notepad++?
Yes, and it detects the file's character set first and names it in the status bar, from 220 sets. Pick UTF-8 to convert, or another set to re-read the same bytes.
Does Volt support plugins?
No. Modes and themes are files you can write, tools are commands you configure, and compare, hex and FTP are built in.
Is Volt free?
It is in free beta now: no account, no sign-up. Pricing for 1.0 is not settled; people on the list hear about it first.
Try it with your Notepad++ habits
Volt is in free beta. Download it now — no account, no sign-up — and try it on the file you have in mind. Each build runs for seven days, and every update gives another seven.
macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon. About 8 MB, signed and notarised. Everything it does · what changed in this build.
Related
- Volt compared with other editors — BBEdit, Sublime, VS Code, Vim.
- Converting a file to UTF-8 on a Mac — what the encodings menu was for.
- Find and replace across files — Find in Files, on a Mac.
- Everything Volt does — the complete list, searchable.