Download BBEdit Free for Mac

The latest version of the much-loved BBEdit from Bare Bones Software might be the best text editor you can find on the Mac.

Pros

The same, even better: The text editor is 25 years old, but Bare Bones constantly updates and renews its popular BBEdit software to keep it an essential tool for coders and writers looking for an industrial-strength tool.

Basic to advanced text editing: BBEdit, of course, handles all the basics you’d expect in a text editor. You can add and delete text; drag and drop selections; and cut, copy, and paste selected text. BBEdit also offers multiple levels of undo and redo.

But it also has a few handy features you don’t often find. For example, BBEdit has six separate clipboards. As you cut or copy text, the selection gets added to the next clipboard. You automatically paste your most recent clipboard addition, but you can navigate through the six clipboards via Previous and Next Clipboard commands. Or text completions. When you pause typing, BBEdit displays words that begin with the letters you are typing, helping for completing phrases or lines of code. And you can set up preferences for the programming or markup language you are using in a document.

Syntax coloring: BBEdit uses syntax coloring for a broad range of languages (from HTML and Python to Objective-C) to highlight different parts of code to make it easier to read.

Script editor: BBEdit is highly scriptable, with many of its features and commands controllable via AppleScript, Apple’s English-like scripting language used to automate actions.

Find and replace and more: Sure, BBEdit does find and replace. And you can use grep to create powerful pattern searches. And through the Find Differences command, you can compare the contents of two documents and view differences in a separate window to review and reconcile differences.

Cons

Not cross-platform: If you only work on Macs, you may not find a better text editor than the Apple-only BBEdit. But if you spend some of your time on Windows, you will need to look for an equally capable text editor, such as Sublime.

Bottom Line

For those who have used BBEdit, the latest update should look very familiar. But Bare Bones Software has added a basket of new features that make the new version of the text editor an essential tool, whether you are working with code or just managing documents. A free trial version runs for 30 days; purchase new for $49.99 or upgrade from BBEdit 11 for $29.99.