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DIRECTORY

Best Writing Apps for Mac

Showing 69 writing apps that match your search.

Create beautiful handwritten notes, sketch your ideas, record audio, and organize your notes like never before.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android

Best for: Note-taking, Journal, Book, Story, Essay, Poetry, and Blog

Website: https://www.noteshelf.net/

Base price:

$9.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Create your own diary

Search your handwritten notes

Syncs across devices

★★★ Performance

★★★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.4 on the App Store

iWriter Pro is elegant and minimalist text editor with built-in MultiMarkdown support. Distraction-free and subscription-free.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Drafting, Book, Story, Blog, and Free

Website: https://serpensoft.info/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Distraction-free writing

Markdown highlighting

iCloud support

★★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.8 on the App Store

Ginger is more than a grammar checker, spell checker, and punctuation checker. Ginger is an all-in-one writing tool that includes Rephrase to empower you to write your best in ways that traditional online grammar checkers can’t.

Platforms: Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone, iPad, Online, PC

Best for: Editing, Proofreading, Book, Essay, Story, Blog, and Free

Website: https://www.gingersoftware.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$6.99 monthly

AI-powered

Grammar and spell checker

Sentence rephraser

Punctuation checker

★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.6 on the App Store

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OmniOutliner is a powerful tool for organizing (and reorganizing) information, so you can see the full picture and structure your information effortlessly.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Essay, and Blog

Website: https://www.omnigroup.com/omnioutliner/

Base price:

$19.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

$99.99 one-time payment

Resource folders

Multitasking

Document stats

Inline notes

★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★ Value

Also rated 3.2 on the App Store

Outline faster, organize smarter, and turbocharge your productivity today with the #1 visual book planning software for writers.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, PC

Best for: Outlining, Book, and Story

Website: https://plottr.com/

Base price:

$99.00 one-time payment

Premium price:

$149.00 one-time payment

Visual timelines

Series planning

Starter templates & story bibles

★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 3.0 on Reedsy

Scrivener is the go-to app for writers of all kinds, used every day by best-selling novelists, screenwriters, non-fiction writers, students, academics, lawyers, journalists, translators and more.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, PC

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Editing, Publishing, Book, and Story

Website: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview

Base price:

$59.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Flexible corkboard

Structure outliner

Metadata and target setting

Print and export functionalities

★★★★ Performance

★★★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on Reedsy

Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear. It's like a spellchecker, but for style. It makes sure that your reader will focus on your message, not your prose.

Platforms: Windows, PC, Mac

Best for: Editing, Proofreading, Book, Essay, Story, Blog, and Free

Website: https://hemingwayapp.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$19.99 one-time payment

Grammar and spell checker

Readability score

Style checker

★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on Reedsy

Cold Turkey Writer transforms your computer into a typewriter, which forces you to do nothing but write.

Platforms: Windows, Mac, PC

Best for: Drafting, Book, Story, and Free

Website: https://getcoldturkey.com/writer/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$9.00 one-time payment

Distraction-free writing

Timer block

Word count block

★★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on TechRadar

Create documents, make impact. When your work needs to wow, Craft gives you the tools to make it magnificent.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Windows, Online, PC

Best for: Note-taking, Drafting, Journal, Essay, Blog, and Free

Website: https://www.craft.do/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$5.00 monthly

AI writing assistant

Document structuring

Customizable

Collaboration

★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.9 on the App Store

Textilus Pro is a great word processor app for students and business people, also being excellent for writing reports, papers, blog posts, journals or ebooks! Textilus Pro can help you organize your research, generate ideas, and remove distractions so you can focus on the most important thing: writing.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Note-taking, Drafting, Blog, Essay, and Free

Website: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/textilus-pro-word-processor...

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

MLA and APA format and citations

Create your own templates

Dark mode & split screen mode

★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.5 on the App Store

SSuite WordGraph is a free and very useful alternative to Microsoft's Word, OpenOffice's Writer, or anything else out there claiming to be the latest and greatest. You don't even have a need for .NET or even JAVA to be installed. This will save you a lot of hard drive space and precious computer resources.

Platforms: Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Chrome, Android, PC

Best for: Drafting, Story, Book, Essay, and Free

Website: https://www.ssuiteoffice.com/software/wordgraph.htm

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Text editor

Free Microsfot Word alternative

Export files as .doc and more

★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Drafts opens to a new page with the keyboard ready so you can type immediately. Go hands-free with Dictation. Drafts lets you get things down before you forget without fiddling folders, naming, etc.

Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac

Best for: Note-taking, Journal, Essay, Blog, and Free

Website: https://getdrafts.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Dictation

Tags for organization

Customizable ediitng

Fast sync

★★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

★★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.8 on the App Store

What makes a good writing app?

Put simply, what makes a writing app good for you will depend on the kind of writer that you are. 

  • If you’re an author, you might be interested in a writing app with outlining, planning, and formatting functionalities.
  • If you’re a student, you’re probably in the market for a writing app that blocks out distractions while you’re writing.
  • If you’re a screenwriter, you’ll want a writing app that’s specifically dedicated to writing screenplays.

Or, if you’re none of the above, worry not: that’s why we built this directory of writing apps. Whatever you need, we’ve gathered the outstanding writing apps of 2024 across multiple categories (drafting, editing, note-taking, etc) and platforms (Android, iOS, online browsers, etc) in one place. Feel free to use the filters to make your quest for the perfect writing app even easier!

So what are the best writing apps of 2024?

We can now put an end to the age-old debate of which writing app is best: Microsoft Word vs. Google Docs

The answer, of course, is neither! Hopefully, this directory will point you towards a much better match that actually fulfills your writing needs. We objectively evaluated each writing app based on four metrics.

  • Performance: How seamlessly does the writing app do what it’s purported to do? How good is the user experience, from top to bottom?
  • Features: How many bells and whistles are built into the app to augment its use?
  • Accessibility: Is it widely available on many different operating platforms (e.g. iOS, Windows, mobile, desktop, etc)?
  • Value: Is it worth the cost that it would take to download it?

Here are some general recommendations to give you a headstart.

The best writing app for authors

If you’ve been searching for an all-in-one outlining, writing, formatting, and typesetting tool, look no further than Reedsy Studio. Used by over 50,000 authors every month, it’s publishing’s most trusted companion to take them from a first draft to a professionally exported manuscript.

💰 Price:  Free

🚉 Runs on: Web

The best writing app for note-takers

Evernote is the king of written organization. In addition to its free organizational templates, Evernote also gives you impressive tagging capabilities, an omnipresent Web Clipper, and the ability to share notes with collaborators, so that you’ll never forget anything again.

💰 Price:  Free basic plan, $4.99/month for premium

🚉 Runs on: Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android

The best writing app for screenwriters

Along with standard scriptwriting features, Final Draft enables you to measure character traits using its inclusivity analysis feature, and tweak your “beat board” until you find your perfect arrangement. And when you’re ready to bring in editors, you can all work simultaneously in real time.

💰 Price: Free trial for 30 days, $249.99 license fee

🚉 Runs on: Mac, iOS, and Windows

I’ve found the perfect writing app. What next?

Congratulations! Now the fun part begins: actually writing the project that you’ve got in mind.

For authors, this means that you have a long and exciting road ahead. In addition to a writing app, we recommend that you arm yourself with some writing knowledge before you embark on it: whether it’s an understanding of story structure or careful thought put into your character creation, all of it can help you realize your goal of a novel.

If you don’t know where to start, check out the list of free resources below. Good luck, and happy writing!

Free online materials

RBE | Writing App For You Interface | 2024-09

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