Introducing PlainPad: A Simple Notepad App for Mac (and Windows, too!)
I recently made the switch from Windows to Mac, and I love it, but there was one thing I immediately missed: Notepad! Just plain, simple, no-frills Notepad. It opens, you type, it saves. That's it! Everything I found on Mac was just awful. So much more complicated, or had too many boxes and windows and things to click. I. Just. Wanted. A. Simple. Notepad.
So... I built one with Claude! I used Claude Code and vibe coded the whole thing. No prior app development experience. No deep Xcode knowledge. Just me describing what I wanted, iterating, and figuring it out as I went. There is probably still a lot I don't know about. But... I just opened Pandora's box with vibe coding, can't wait to create more things!
What It Does (and What It Doesn't)
PlainPad doesn't try to be everything. That's literally the whole point. Here's what you get:
| Tabs: open as many notes as you want in one window, just like a browser |
| Light and dark mode: follows your system settings, or you can lock it either way from the View menu |
| Word wrap: on by default, and toggleable from the Format menu |
| Line numbers: a simple checkbox in the toolbar turns them on or off |
| Zoom in and out: keyboard shortcuts or buttons right in the toolbar, from 8pt all the way up to 64pt |
| Spell check and grammar check: automatically underlines mistakes as you type, no manual runs needed |
| Full file support: open, save, and save as, with proper Mac dialogs; works with .txt, .md, .log, .csv, and more |
| "Open With" support: set PlainPad as your default for text files and double-clicking just works |
| Unsaved changes indicator: a small dot on the tab lets you know when something hasn't been saved yet |
| Remembers where you left off: your notes, tabs, and window size are all restored when you reopen the app |
| Works on any Mac: Apple Silicon and Intel, built as a universal binary |
Like the app and want to support me? Feel free to buy me a coffee! ☕️ 🙏
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