Folio Writer Folio Writer
New in 1.8.6 — Folio Helper, hands-free →
Draft anything long — a paper, a book, a novel — the way you actually think about it: a binder of sections you outline, rearrange, and fold into a finished draft. Everything stays as plain text you own — portable Markdown and Typst files, on disk, forever.
Not a text box. A studio — with the structure, citations, and output a manuscript needs, on top of plain files.
Sections, folders, and subdocuments you outline, drag to reorder, and lay out on a corkboard — Scrivener-style.
Keep references as .bib files in the project. Insert by author and year; see them rendered inline as you write.
LaTeX math, Markdown, and citations render right in the editor — the syntax steps aside as you read, returns as you edit.
Export to PDF, Word, LaTeX, Typst, HTML, or Markdown through pandoc — title pages, figures, cross-references, bibliography.
Write in Markdown, or keep a document as a native Typst file — mix both in one project and compile them together.
Type #tags inline or add Keywords in the inspector — one index, colored capsules everywhere, a project-wide Tag Index, and tag: search filters.
⌥⌘J opens today’s entry from your template. Entries file themselves by year, month, and day, and a calendar in the binder shows the days you wrote.
⇧⌘P runs any command; ⌃⌘L jumps to any document. Put two documents side by side with ⌥⌘\.
Conflict-safe merging, automatic version history synced to every device, and a live indicator under the binder: Saving… Syncing… Synced.
Sync across your Macs and the free iPhone and iPad apps through iCloud, Dropbox, or any Files location — conflict-safe.
A distraction-free room, typewriter scrolling, sentence focus, and per-document, per-session word targets.
Take a snapshot before a heavy revision; browse, diff, and restore. Nothing you write is ever quietly lost.
Propose a change instead of making one — every suggestion carries its author, shown as a diff to accept or reject.
Send co-authors real tracked changes in .docx; Import Review brings their edits back as proposals — nothing lands without your say-so.
Elsevier, IEEE, Tufte, and NSF proposal templates — each opens with a page explaining how it’s meant to be used.
Pull references straight from your Zotero library, anchor comments to any passage — highlighted in the editor — and build a response-to-reviewers letter from them.
Turn tracking on, edit freely, then Show My Edits — accept or reject each change, leave margin comments for co-authors, and export as native Word revisions or colored PDF markup.
Arrange the corkboard by label or status and drag a card between columns to reassign it — the lane highlights as you drag, kanban-style.
Execute Python or R cells right in the preview — matplotlib and ggplot figures render in place, via Quarto through the free Folio Helper.
Keep Python and R scripts in Research: edit with full highlighting, Run, and every figure lands in a Figures folder named after its label.
Write @fig:x or @fig-x — Folio Writer converts to pandoc-crossref or Quarto to match the renderer you compile with, your code left untouched.
One project, seen every way you work — and what each view unlocks: Free, Pro, and Premium.
No subscription, no account, no add-ons. Pro and Premium are one-time in-app purchases on the Mac App Store — free to try for 7 days — and the iPhone and iPad apps are free for everyone. Start with Pro and move up whenever — Premium then costs just the difference ($19.99), credited automatically in the app.
Everything you need to write and organize a manuscript.
Finish and ship your manuscript. Buy it once and it stays unlocked — on every Mac you own, for every future version.
The full studio — everything in Pro, plus the boards and everything that talks to other people and other tools. Pro owners upgrade for the difference ($19.99).
Every feature, no trial, no purchase, no add-ons — and it syncs live with your unlocked Mac. Draft on the Mac, keep writing on the train, pick it up again on the iPad; a project is the same folder of plain Markdown files at both ends, in iCloud Drive or any Files location. Nothing to buy twice: the one-time Mac unlock covers the whole setup.
The Mac app, its free tool helper, and the free iPhone and iPad apps — a project is the same folder of plain files everywhere.
Development notes, tips, and release news — @foliowriterapp on X.
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Folio Writer collects nothing and tracks nobody. There are no accounts, no analytics, and no servers reading your work — your manuscripts live in plain files on your own disk and your own iCloud. Read the privacy policy →