We are pleased to announce that the first preview version of EmEditor for Mac, Preview 1 (v0.0.1), is now available. Anyone can use it free of charge until January 31, 2027.

Download EmEditor for Mac Preview 1 (DMG)

A message from the developer

We have been developing EmEditor for Windows since 1997. From the very beginning, many of you asked for a Mac version, and I always wanted to build one. I tried once before, but I was not able to continue.

Now, thanks to recent advances in AI-assisted development, I am finally able to bring you EmEditor for Mac. It has almost the same features as the Windows version, and it is optimized for speed with very large files and CSV files.

AI helped us move much faster, but we deliberately made changes in small steps. At every commit, we made sure the code passed all of our tests, and we compared EmEditor’s speed and size before and after the change. All of our internal test macros now pass on both Mac and Windows, with only a few changes needed for OS-specific behavior. This approach took longer, but the result is solid.

EmEditor for Mac is not a simple fork of the Windows version. We moved much of our Windows-specific code into a single cross-platform core, and we develop the user interface separately for each operating system. I believe this is the right way to build EmEditor for multiple platforms. It has already allowed us to clean up the core code and fix several bugs along the way, which benefits Windows users too. It would have been worth doing even if we had not been able to release the Mac version in the end. Going forward, we plan to develop both versions at the same time, so neither will fall behind the other.

Some parts of the user interface are intentionally similar to EmEditor for Windows, so existing Windows users can start working right away without confusion. We will keep listening to your feedback and improving the user interface and appearance in future versions.

I am so excited about this release. In fact, I am writing this blog post in EmEditor for Mac right now.

What’s included

Most features of the Windows version are available in the Mac version, including:

• Very large files: Open and edit files of many gigabytes. Large files stay on disk while you edit them (disk mode). Fast View mode opens huge files almost instantly; a Fast View document is an ordinary tab, marked with a lightning bolt icon, as on Windows. The Large File Controller opens only the part of a file you need, from a start position to an end position.
• CSV and TSV: Edit in cell mode, sort, filter (including the Advanced Filter), extract, and create pivot tables. The CSV Converter converts a document between CSV formats, such as CSV and TSV, and fixed-width columns.
• Find and replace: Regular expressions, the Find and Replace toolbars, Find in Files and Replace in Files, batch find and replace, filters, and Narrowing.
• Compare: Compare two files side by side and move between the differences.
• Encodings: Wide support for encodings, with automatic detection, as in the Windows version.
• Spell check: Uses the spelling dictionaries built into macOS.
• Markdown: Markdown Design view, and a Markdown and HTML preview.
• Navigation and organization: Outline, Bookmarks, Markers, Favorites, tabs, and split windows.
• Workspaces: EmEditor can restore your documents the next time it starts, including unsaved text and undo history.
• Printing
• Customization: Configuration properties, keyboard shortcuts, toolbars, and the Customize dialog, organized as in the Windows version, so your familiar options are where you expect them.
• 12 user interface languages: The same languages as the Windows version.
• Macros: Many JavaScript macros written for EmEditor for Windows run in EmEditor for Mac without changes. On Mac, macros run on the JavaScript engine built into macOS, not JScript or V8. You can also record and play back macros.

Performance

We measured EmEditor for Mac v0.0.1 and EmEditor for Windows v26.4.2 with the same file: 4.72 GB (5,069,084,800 bytes) of random text in 50,000,001 lines. The times are the ones EmEditor itself shows in the status bar.

Test	EmEditor for Mac	EmEditor for Windows
Start EmEditor	0.140 seconds	0.072 seconds
Open the file in Fast View	0.723 seconds	1.503 seconds
Open the file again in Fast View, with its saved diff file	0.002 seconds	0.004 seconds
Find “abc” and count the matches (45,400 matches)	0.095 seconds	0.296 seconds
Replace “abc” with “###” (45,400 replacements)	0.065 seconds	0.210 seconds
Extract the lines that contain “abc” (45,400 lines)	0.307 seconds	0.828 seconds

Mac: MacBook Pro, Apple M5 Pro, 24 GB of memory, macOS 26.7.2. Windows: Intel Core i7-13700, 80 GB of memory, Windows 11 Pro 25H2. The two computers are different, so these numbers do not compare the two versions of EmEditor directly, but they show that EmEditor for Mac handles very large files as fast as you expect from EmEditor.

Not yet available

The following features are not available, or work differently, in this preview:

• Plug-ins, including AI, Git, Snippets, Projects, and Explorer features
• Language Server Protocol (LSP), including Format Selection and Go to Definition
• External tools
• Synchronizing settings between computers, and importing settings from EmEditor for Windows
• Tools > Import and Export, for importing settings from a file and exporting them to a file
• The web browser embedded in EmEditor
• Macros written in languages other than JavaScript, such as VBScript
• Some macro features that depend on Windows, such as editor.ExecutePlugin, shell.SendKeys, and finding windows by their Windows class names
• .editorconfig works only after you allow the folder by selecting File > Allow .editorconfig in This Folder…. This is required by the macOS sandbox.

System requirements

macOS 26 or later on a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later).

For this preview, we support only the environments we can fully test. If you need support for earlier versions of macOS or Intel-based Macs, please let us know. Your feedback will help us decide what to support in future versions.

Make sure your download is genuine

Please download EmEditor for Mac only from our website. Both the DMG file and the EmEditor app are signed with Emurasoft’s Developer ID and notarized by Apple, which means Apple has scanned them for malicious software. This is the Mac counterpart of the digital signature that we ask you to check on Windows.

macOS checks the signature for you. The first time you open EmEditor, macOS says that it is an app downloaded from the Internet and that Apple checked it for malicious software and found none. If the file was changed after we signed it, macOS refuses to open it.

To check the signature yourself, open Terminal and type the following command, followed by a space. Then drag the downloaded DMG file into the Terminal window, and press Return:

spctl -a -vv -t open --context context:primary-signature

The result must end with these lines:

accepted
source=Notarized Developer ID
origin=Developer ID Application: Emurasoft, Inc. (UBZU3KXM6S)

After you install EmEditor, you can check the app in the same way:

spctl -a -vv /Applications/EmEditor.app

If the result says rejected, or shows a name or ID other than Emurasoft, Inc. (UBZU3KXM6S), do not open the file. Delete it and let us know through our contact form.

Licensing

• During the preview: EmEditor for Mac is free for everyone until January 31, 2027. After that date, preview versions no longer start: EmEditor shows a message and quits. Your files and settings are not affected, and you can keep using them with the official version.
• After the official release: An EmEditor Professional subscription license covers both Windows and Mac. A Mac counts as one computer under our existing license terms.
• EmEditor Free: Just like the Windows version, EmEditor Free is also available for Mac. EmEditor Free is a free edition for personal use at home or at school.
• Lifetime licenses (existing users): We no longer sell lifetime licenses. This applies to customers who purchased a lifetime license in the past. As stated in the original lifetime license terms, lifetime licenses do not apply to versions of EmEditor for other operating systems, so they do not cover EmEditor for Mac. Lifetime licenses continue to cover EmEditor Professional for Windows as before.

What’s next

We plan to release the official version of EmEditor for Mac in January 2027. Until then, we will release new preview versions regularly with bug fixes and improvements.

You do not need to download each new preview yourself. EmEditor for Mac can check for updates and install them for you, and you can check at any time by selecting EmEditor > Check for Updates….

Plans, including release dates and licensing terms, are subject to change.

Send us your feedback

This is a preview version, so you may find bugs or missing features. Please send bug reports, feature requests, and other comments through our contact form. Your feedback directly shapes the official release.

When you report a bug, please include your macOS version, your Mac model (for example, MacBook Air M2), and the steps to reproduce the problem. If EmEditor crashes, it offers to send a crash report the next time it starts. Please send it, and add a short description of what you were doing. Crash reports help us find and fix problems much faster.

Thank you for your patience over the years, and thank you for trying EmEditor for Mac!

Yutaka Emura