NotepadMac › FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Notepad++ on a Mac: what NotepadMac is, what it does, and what it does not.
Does Notepad++ run on a Mac?
Not the Windows program itself: Notepad++ is a Windows application and its makers do not publish a Mac version. NotepadMac is an unofficial native port. It is a Cocoa application built from the same editing engine (Scintilla) and syntax highlighting (Lexilla) as Notepad++, reads the same language, style, theme, function-list and translation files, and runs on Apple silicon and Intel Macs with macOS 11 or later. No Wine, no emulation, no virtual machine.
Is NotepadMac the official Notepad++ for macOS?
No. It is an independent port, not made, released or supported by the Notepad++ project. It is written against Notepad++'s own sources, so commands behave the way they do on Windows, but questions and bug reports about the Mac version belong in this repository's Issues and Discussions, not with the Notepad++ project.
How do I install it?
With Homebrew: brew install --cask tanderbold/tap/notepadmac. Or download the .dmg from the Releases page on GitHub, open it and drag NotepadMac to Applications. One universal build runs on Apple silicon and Intel; macOS 11 or later is required. Releases are signed and notarised by Apple's notary service.
Is it free?
Yes. NotepadMac is free and open source under the GNU GPL version 3, the same licence as Notepad++. The complete source code is on GitHub and the application can be built with nothing but Apple's Command Line Tools.
Do Notepad++ plugins work in NotepadMac?
Windows plugins (.dll files) cannot load: they are Windows binaries. The most used ones are built into the application instead: JSON viewer, Compare, XML tools, an FTP/FTPS client, NppExec-style scripting and MIME tools. Native Mac plugins can be written against a small C interface, Notepad++'s plugin interface translated to macOS, with the full Scintilla API available.
Does it work with Git?
Yes, without any plugin. Inside a Git repository the editor marks the lines you changed since the last commit in the margin as you type, shows the branch in the status bar, and the Plugins > Git menu gives you a panel of the repository's changed files to stage, unstage, discard and commit, Compare with HEAD in the Compare view, Blame and File History as documents, Switch Branch and New Branch, and Fetch, Pull and Push with their output in the console. It drives the git that comes with Apple's Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install), so what it shows is exactly what git status says.
Can I bring my settings over from Notepad++ on Windows?
Yes. session.xml, shortcuts.xml, contextMenu.xml, User Defined Language files, themes and stylers are read and written in the Windows formats, so a settings folder can be copied across. On the Mac, settings live in ~/Library/Application Support/NotepadMac/.
Which languages does it highlight?
About 90 languages, from Notepad++'s own langs.model.xml and stylers.model.xml, with folding, function list and auto-completion, plus User Defined Languages made in the built-in editor or imported from Windows. When a file has no extension, or text is pasted into an empty tab, a small model trained on real code works out the language from the contents.
How is NotepadMac different from NotepadNext?
NotepadNext is a cross-platform reimplementation of Notepad++ in Qt for Windows, Linux and macOS, with its own language definitions and Lua scripting. NotepadMac is a macOS-only native Cocoa application written against Notepad++'s sources and using Notepad++'s own data files: all 579 menu commands, User Defined Languages, the Style Configurator and themes, all 46 character sets, Boost regular expressions, and Windows-format settings files. Which one fits depends on whether you need the same editor on several platforms or the Notepad++ behaviour on a Mac.
Does it support the same regular expressions as Notepad++?
Yes. Find, Replace, Find in Files and Mark use the Boost regular-expression engine with Notepad++'s syntax, including $1-style backreferences in replacements, look-ahead and look-behind, and the search results window with folding.
Is the interface translated?
The interface is available in Notepad++'s ~90 translations, chosen in Preferences. Texts that exist only in the Mac version are translated too, by machine for now, and not yet reviewed by native speakers.
Can an AI coding agent use NotepadMac?
Yes. NotepadMac is itself a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server: turn on Preferences > MISC. > Let AI agents drive the editor, then give the agent the command nppmac mcp (for Claude Code: claude mcp add notepadmac -- nppmac mcp). The agent then sees which documents are open and what is selected, reads unsaved text, edits a document as one undoable step, moves the caret to the place it is talking about, bookmarks lines, shows a Compare, runs any of the 579 menu commands, and uses the editor's own engines: the language model, the Lexilla lexers (tokens as the editor colours them), Notepad++'s regular-expression search, the Function List parsers, character-set detection, OCR and the spelling engine. It is off until you turn it on, listens only on a socket your own processes can open, and sends nothing over the network.