A quiet place to write.

Writy is a Markdown writing app for the Mac: a calm editor for prose, a library for every draft, and plain files that stay yours.

Apps for iPad and iPhone are coming.

News Writy’s Assistant Now Finds the Words That Don’t Sound Like You

Writy’s window with all four panes: the library’s groups, each with its own icon, the Dubliners sheets, the story Araby open in the editor with the caret at the end of its text, and Sheet Info with its dates, its counts against an 800-word goal, and its tags.

##The Editor

Everything else can wait.

A quiet page — and, when you want them, a few quiet aids.

Thoreau’s “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” in Writy’s editor, the caret at the end of its text.
The opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities in Writy’s editor, each comma set a little heavier and in a softer gray, the caret after its final period.
The opening of Pride and Prejudice in Focus Mode: the paragraph with the caret — Mrs. Bennet asking whether Netherfield Park is let at last — at full strength, the rest dimmed.
The first paragraph of Moby-Dick in Typewriter Mode: the line with the caret held at the middle of the editor above a faint guide, the text fading toward the top and bottom.

No toolbar and no status bar. Move the pointer and a few quiet buttons appear in the corners; they fade as soon as you type.

Punctuation Highlight gives commas, periods, and the like a touch more weight and a quieter color — the rhythm of a long sentence, at a glance. On by default.

Dims everything but the paragraph you’re in. ⇧⌘F

Keeps the line you’re writing centered on screen, above a faint guide. ⇧⌘T

##The Library

Every draft, right where you left it.

Every piece of writing is a sheet, and sheets live in groups — nest them, drag them, sort them your way, give each its own icon. Tag a sheet, filter a group by tag, or search everything you’ve written. Each sheet reopens where you left off.

Underneath, it’s all plain Markdown.

Your library is a folder in iCloud Drive, or one you choose: groups are folders, and every sheet is an ordinary .md file. Tags, goals, and the scratch mark ride along in a small header at the top — open it in any editor.

Writy’s library and sheet list: the groups, each with its own icon, Essays selected, a goal bar beside its sheet count, then “..” to go up a level and the Drafts group, above six sheets with their tags — Notes on Style selected, and the scratch sheet Commonplace marked in red.
Essays / Notes on Style.md
---
tags: [craft, strunk]
goal: 650 words
---
# Notes on Style

From Strunk’s *The Elements of Style* (1918).
%% Reread before every revision pass.

## Principles of composition

### Omit needless words

Vigorous writing is **concise**. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words …

##Sheet Info and More

For the long haul.

Long work needs a map, a goal, and somewhere to put the cuttings. Writy keeps them beside the page, one keystroke away.

Outline and highlights

Every heading and every highlighted passage, listed beside the editor. Click one and the editor slides there. ⌘4

Sheet Info’s Outline: the twelve headings of Notes on Style as a tree, one flagged for skipping a level; below it, the sheet’s four highlighted passages, each led by ::.

Markdown that styles itself

Headings, emphasis, quotes, and highlights take shape as you type. The marks stay, dimmed, so what you see is what’s in the file. Forgot one? Aa in the editor’s corner lists them all.

Emerson’s Self-Reliance in Writy’s editor: a heading with its # mark, italic and bold words with their markers dimmed, a %% note in violet italics, a quotation, a highlighted sentence, and a struck-through one.

Writing goals

In words or characters, for a sheet or a whole group — with a bar that fills as you write.

Sheet Info’s table for Notes on Style: its created and updated dates, its characters, and its words against a 650-word goal, with a progress bar about half full.

Scratch sheets

Notes, cuttings, and old drafts, marked in red and left out of the group’s totals.

Two sheets in the list: Notes on Style, and below it the scratch sheet Commonplace, with a red scribble before its title and red rails at its edges.

Tags

Filter a group by tag from its summary, with the group’s totals beside it.

The First Lines group’s summary: seven sheets, their word and character totals, and a pill for each tag with its count, dickens selected.

Typed, then set

Two hyphens become an em dash, and straight quotes turn curly as you type. Spelling is checked; nothing is corrected behind your back.

##Second Thoughts

Try it another way.

Most of writing is rewriting. Keep other versions of a passage beside it, fade a sentence out before you cut it, and go back to any earlier draft. Nothing is lost, and it all stays plain Markdown.

Thoreau’s Walking in Writy’s editor, the Alternatives panel beside its last sentence: “preservation” as written, one other word of the writer’s own, and three from Apple’s model with small robots for their dots, “keeping” in focus and shown in the text.
The opening of Great Expectations, its last sentence ghosted, faded to a fifth of the text’s color, the caret after it.

Alternatives

Keep other versions of a passage beside it and read each in its place. The file keeps the one you choose. ⌥⌘↩

Ghosts

Not sure a sentence earns its place? Ghost it: it stays in the sheet, faded, and out of the count and the export. ⇧⌘G

A history for every sheet

Writy keeps its versions as you write. Compare one with the sheet as it is, and bring it back.

##Writy Assistant

A second pair of eyes.

Click the robot in the editor’s corner for other wordings, a check of your punctuation, typos and grammar, or the words that don’t match your voice. It works only when you ask, and it’s as good as the model behind it: Apple’s, free on a Mac with Apple Intelligence, or your own Claude or ChatGPT.

Writy’s Settings at its Assistant tab, its providers from the smallest model up: Apple Intelligence, on this Mac, Basic and ready; Apple Private Cloud Compute, Basic, “pending approval for Writy”; ChatGPT, Good, with Connect…; and Claude, Best, in use and highlighted, “API key connected, model: Opus 5.5”, “Spent this month: ~$0.42”, and “Stop at $10 a month” ticked.
The opening of Pride and Prejudice in Writy’s editor, its first sentence selected, and above the robot in the corner its menu: “Writy Assistant (Claude)”, then Selected Text: Suggest Alternatives, Proofread, and Find Off-Tone Words.

When the word won’t come

Type ?? as an alternative, and the assistant suggests three other wordings.

Proofread

Punctuation, typos and grammar: each change shows right above your words, to accept or skip. Your style stays yours.

Find Off-Tone Words

With your own Claude or ChatGPT: the words that don’t match your text’s voice, each with a better fit.

Your own Claude or ChatGPT

For much better results, connect one with an API key. Anthropic or OpenAI bills you, usually cents for a whole sheet.

A cap on what it spends

Settings shows this month’s spend and stops at a cap you set. Your text goes straight to the company you chose.

##Bigger Projects

When it’s time to send it.

Longer work asks for more than a quiet page: notes at the foot of the page, pictures in the text, and a clean copy for whoever reads it next. It all stays plain Markdown.

The opening of Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle in Writy’s editor: its title, Conrad Martens’ painting of HMS Beagle below its dimmed tag, and the first paragraph with a footnote written in place and muted.
The first page of The Voyage of the Beagle as Writy exports it to PDF: its title, the painting of HMS Beagle across the text, the opening paragraph with a small raised 1, and the footnote at the foot of the page.

Export, set as in Writy

Word, PDF, or Rich Text — one sheet, or a whole group as one document, each sheet a chapter. ⇧⌘E

Footnotes where they belong

Type ^[the note] in the sentence. Export numbers it and puts it at the foot of its page, in Word and PDF.

Pictures beside the text

Drop one on a sheet, or insert it from the Edit menu: Writy keeps it in the folder beside the sheet and shows it after its paragraph. ⇧⌘I

##Light, Dark, and Your Own

Those long nights belong to you.

Dark when the house is asleep, light in the morning — or let Writy follow your Mac. And the page is yours to set: any font on your Mac, the line height, paragraph spacing, first-line indent, and line width, even the colors, separately for light and dark.

⇧⌘L Light or dark⌘+ ⌘− Text size

The opening of Anna Karenina in Writy’s dark appearance: light gray text on near-black, each comma and period set a little heavier, the caret at the end.
The opening of Jane Eyre on a warm paper tint: brown-gray text on a cream page. The opening of Eveline set in Charter on a near-white page, each paragraph’s first line indented. The opening of Emerson’s Nature on a custom blue-black dark, the highlighted phrase “let him look at the stars” in soft teal.

Writy Stories

My tools have to follow me.

Emil
writer, and the maker of Writy

It’s always different. I write fiction — and not only fiction. I write in long breaths, and then in bursts: page-long paragraphs, then bites and punches.

My tools have to follow me. Whether it’s an urge to unleash or a random weave of thought in a peaceful hour, it needs to land uninterrupted. For years I kept my drafts in good writing apps that were never quite mine — ironic, for someone who builds software as well as writes. So I finally made the one I wanted: a quiet page that takes a long sentence seriously, and a library that keeps every draft in plain text, the bedrock of digital language.

Good to know.

Can I try Writy now?

Yes: join the beta, open to anyone on a Mac. It comes through Apple’s TestFlight, which installs Writy and keeps it up to date. Tell us how it goes, from the app or at feedback@writy.com, and Writy is yours free for life when it comes out.

Where does my writing live?

In plain Markdown files, in a folder: Writy’s own in iCloud Drive, unless you choose another. Groups are subfolders, and tags and goals live in a small header in each file, so your sheets stay readable in any editor.

Does Writy save automatically?

Yes, as you type. If a file changes on disk underneath you, Writy keeps your version as a separate copy instead of overwriting either one.

Can I keep my library in iCloud Drive?

Yes: a new library starts there, in iCloud Drive ▸ Writy. Writy writes its files safely and lets iCloud Drive do the syncing.

Can I bring my work from other editors?

Yes. Export it as Markdown and drop the files into your library: Writy reads first-line titles, trailing #hashtag tags, and %% comments the way other editors write them, so each sheet arrives with its title and tags. From one app so far, File ▸ Import… brings a whole library over as a new group, each sheet with its title, tags, pictures, and dates, and leaves that app’s library as it was.

Does Writy use AI?

Only when you ask. Type ?? as an alternative and it suggests other wordings, or choose Proofread for your punctuation, typos and grammar, and each change it suggests shows right above your words, to accept or skip; your style stays yours. With your own Claude or ChatGPT, Find Off-Tone Words also walks you through the words that don’t match your text’s voice, each with a better fit. Nothing changes until you accept it, and Writy keeps the sheet as a version first, so you can always go back. On a Mac with Apple Intelligence it uses Apple’s model, for free. For much better results, connect your own Claude or ChatGPT in Settings ▸ Assistant with an API key: Anthropic or OpenAI bills you for each use, usually cents for a whole sheet. Your text goes straight from your Mac to the company you chose, never to a server of ours, and Writy never trains anything on your writing.

Is Writy coming to iPad and iPhone?

Yes. Writy is for the Mac for now, and apps for iPad and iPhone are coming.