QuickEdit
QuickEdit app icon

Free & open source · Native on macOS 26

Quick, safe edits
for code and text files.

QuickEdit is a native Mac code viewer and editor for small, quick edits: a modern TextEdit, a lighter Sublime Text, not an IDE. Open a file, change what you came to change, and it's saved byte for byte as it came in, except what you changed.

Download for Mac View on GitHub

Latest release · macOS 26 on Apple silicon · MIT licensed

The QuickEdit window with three tabs, server.ts, cities.csv and README.md, showing a small TypeScript server with syntax highlighting, line numbers, the current line highlighted, and a status bar reading Ln 26, Col 44, TypeScript, Spaces: 2, UTF-8, LF.

Features

Small edits, done right.

Syntax highlighting with tree-sitter

Highlighting comes from tree-sitter grammars bundled with the app, so it follows the structure of the code, not just its keywords. That includes Lumiose components (.stsx and .sjsx), with their <style> blocks highlighted as CSS.

CSV and TSV get rainbow columns. Logs and .txt open as plain text, and QuickEdit picks the language from the file name, so Dockerfile, Makefile, .env and ignore files are recognized too.

Highlighted languages

  • JavaScript / JSX
  • TypeScript / TSX
  • Lumiose .stsx .sjsx
  • CSS
  • SCSS / Sass / Less
  • HTML
  • Vue
  • Svelte
  • Markdown
  • CSV / TSV
  • JSON / JSONC / JSON Lines
  • YAML
  • TOML
  • GraphQL
  • Protocol Buffers
  • Terraform / HCL
  • Nix
  • SpiceDB schemas
  • C
  • C++
  • Objective-C .h by content
  • C#
  • Java
  • Kotlin
  • Swift
  • Go + go.mod
  • Rust
  • Zig
  • Dart
  • Python
  • Ruby
  • PHP
  • Lua
  • PowerShell
  • Metal and GLSL
  • GDScript
  • Godot resources and shaders
  • Dockerfile
  • CMake
  • XML plists, SVG, Xcode files
  • Xcode .xcconfig .strings .pbxproj
  • INI and config files
  • Shell scripts
  • Makefiles
  • SQL
  • .env
  • Ignore files
  • Diffs

Safe edits, byte for byte

Files are saved exactly as they came in, except what you changed. The encoding and line endings are kept, even mixed ones; the status bar shows them and converts them only when you ask. New lines and pasted text use the file's own line ending, and indentation follows the file and its .editorconfig.

Invisible and look-alike characters, like zero-width spaces, bidirectional controls and stray BOMs, are always marked in orange and counted in the status bar. Smart quotes, autocorrect and spell checking are off. Files that can't be decoded exactly open read-only, binary property lists open read-only as XML, and binary files are refused.

What QuickEdit keeps

  • Encoding: UTF-8, UTF-16 or UTF-32 with or without a BOM, Windows and ISO Latin, Mac Roman, Shift JIS…
  • Line endings: LF, CRLF or CR, even mixed
  • Indentation, detected per file or set by .editorconfig
  • Trailing whitespace and final newline, unless .editorconfig says otherwise
  • Every byte you didn't touch

Markdown and HTML preview

Switch between editor, split and preview with ⌘1, ⌘2 and ⌘3; the preview follows your unsaved edits. Markdown renders like GitHub, with tables, task lists and alerts.

HTML previews never run scripts. Local CSS and images load, and remote content only when you allow it for that window.

A Markdown release checklist in split mode: the source with highlighted Markdown on the left, and the rendered preview with a task list, a Tip alert, a code block and a table on the right.

CSV and TSV as a table

Switch a CSV or TSV file to Table with ⌥⌘T or from the status bar, and edit it like a spreadsheet: change cells, add or delete rows and columns, and use the first row as headers.

Every change rewrites only the cells it touches, so the quoting, the delimiter and the line endings stay as they were, and ⌘Z undoes it. Files over 25 MB open as text only.

cities.csv in Table mode: city, country, population and notes columns with four cities, buttons to add and remove rows and columns, a First row is header checkbox, and CRLF in the status bar.

Folders and Quick Open

Open a folder with ⇧⌘O, or drop one on QuickEdit, for a file tree beside the editor. Dotfiles and .gitignored files stay out of the way until you show them, and the folder's files open as tabs of one window.

Press ⌘P to open any file by name. Create, rename, move and trash files right in the tree; open files follow along.

Files and folders get icons from the Material Icon Theme, in light and dark variants, or Finder's icons if you prefer.

The QuickEdit source folder open in QuickEdit: a file tree with Material icons (coloured folders, Swift files) in the sidebar, FolderModel.swift selected, and that file in the second of two tabs, highlighted as Swift.

Details

And the small things that add up.

  • Files as tabs

    Every file opens as a native window tab (⌘T for a new one), in light or dark, and a dot marks the tabs with unsaved changes. Autosave and version history like TextEdit, or explicit ⌘S saving if you prefer.

  • Line commands

    Go to Line (⌘L), move (⌃⌘↑ ⌃⌘↓), duplicate, delete, join and sort lines, indent and outdent, and toggle comments (⌘/). Soft wrap on or off.

  • Code folding

    Fold JSON, CSS, YAML, TOML, JS/TS, Lumiose, Go, Rust, Python, Swift, Markdown, HTML and XML from the gutter or with ⌥⌘← and ⌥⌘→. Folding never changes the file.

  • Voice notes in Markdown

    Record from the status bar or with ⌃⌘R. The clip is saved next to the file, linked at the caret, plays in the preview, and can be transcribed on your Mac.

  • Finder and Quick Look

    TypeScript .ts files (which macOS thinks are videos), YAML, TOML, CSS and Lumiose files get a plain-text Quick Look preview, and Finder's icons and preview pane show their first lines.

  • Your default editor, per type

    In Settings › File Types, check the types QuickEdit should open by default and Apply. Unchecking one gives it back to the app that had it before.

Privacy

Your files stay on your Mac.

  • No tracking

    No analytics, no telemetry and no account. Nothing about you or your files is sent anywhere.

  • Almost no network

    The only connection QuickEdit makes is checking GitHub for updates. An HTML preview loads remote content only when you allow it for that window.

  • Transcribed on device

    Voice notes are transcribed with on-device speech recognition; the audio never leaves your Mac.

Get it

Download QuickEdit.

A disk image for macOS 26 on Apple silicon, from the project's GitHub releases.

Download QuickEdit

Building from source needs Xcode 26: make install builds the release app and copies it to /Applications. 

git clone https://github.com/itsjavi/quickedit.git
cd quickedit
make install