Folio Writer Folio WriterAnswers to the common questions — and a real person when you need one.
A project is an ordinary folder (a .folio package) containing your documents as
plain Markdown and Typst files, your references as .bib files, and a small
folio.json that records the binder structure. Nothing is hidden in a database —
you can open the files in any editor, back them up, or move them anywhere.
On first launch, choose New Project (pick a template and a location) or
Open an existing .folio folder. On iPhone and iPad, use the project
picker to create one in iCloud Drive, On My iPhone, or any connected Files location, or to open
one that’s already there.
Keep your project in a synced folder — iCloud Drive, Dropbox, or any Files provider — and open it on each device. Folio Writer reads and writes the files in place; the cloud service moves them between machines. Edits made on two devices at once are merged automatically when they don’t overlap, and the losing copy of a true conflict is preserved (never discarded) so you can recover it.
These are sync edge cases that recent versions specifically address. Make sure every device is running the latest version, then let each one open the project once so it can see the others’ changes. If it persists, email us with your OS versions and which cloud service you use.
No. Folio Writer has no servers and no accounts — your files stay in your own storage. See the privacy policy for the full picture.
Put your .bib files in the project’s Bibliography folder. Insert citations by
author, year, or key; they can render inline in the editor and resolve into a formatted reference
list when you compile. Grouped citations and page locators ([@smith2020, p. 33]) are
supported.
PDF, Word (.docx), LaTeX, Typst, HTML, and Markdown, via pandoc and Typst — with
title pages, figures, cross-references, and a bibliography assembled from your plain-text source.
Folio Writer runs in Apple’s sandbox, which does not permit launching outside programs directly. Install the free Folio Helper — a small companion app that runs the typesetting tools already on your Mac (pandoc, pandoc-crossref, LaTeX, Typst, Quarto) on Folio Writer’s behalf. Once it’s in Applications and opened once, Compile ▸ Set Up External Tools… shows every tool it found.
Don’t have the tools yet? Install them with one command in Terminal — it shows a menu to pick pandoc, pandoc-crossref, Quarto, Typst, and a LaTeX engine:
curl -fsSL https://foliowriter.uhup.com/install-folio-tools.sh | bash
Open Compile ▸ Set Up External Tools… and press Re-check —
the panel lists what the Folio Helper can see, with paths and
versions, and a Copy Diagnostics button for anything that still fails. Tools installed with
Homebrew, MacTeX, or TinyTeX are found automatically. If a citation reference won’t resolve,
confirm the key exists in one of your .bib files.
Open the same projects, edit with a Markdown key bar, browse and reorganize the binder, take and restore snapshots, search across documents, insert citations, and preview the rendered document (with math). Compiling to PDF/Word stays on the Mac, since those tools are desktop-only — but everything you write syncs straight back.
That’s iCloud materializing the file. It usually resolves in a moment on a good connection; if it’s stuck, open the Files app to the same folder to nudge the download, then return to Folio Writer.
Post in the Bug Reports or Feature Requests category of the community forum — others can confirm, vote, and follow along, and you’ll see when it ships. Or email [email protected] with a short description, your OS version, and — for bugs — the steps that triggered it. Feature requests are genuinely read and shape what’s built next.