Tab.Noted Help

Version 26.2.99 · macOS 13 Ventura and later (Apple Silicon + Intel)

Tab.Noted is a native Mac source code and text editor built for developers, security professionals, and power users. It's entirely local — no account, no tracking, no internet connection required. This page covers every feature, shortcut, and setting. Can't find what you're looking for? Use the contact form.

Getting Started

Opening a File

• Menu: File → Open (⌘O)
• Drag and drop: Drag any file onto the Tab.Noted window or Dock icon
• Recent files: File → Open Recent
• Quick Open: Press ⌘P to search across recently opened files and open tabs

Creating a New Tab

• Press ⌘T or choose File → New Tab
• New tabs are untitled until saved
• Untitled (unsaved) tabs do not restore after quitting — Tab.Noted will prompt you to save them when you quit

Saving Files

• Save: ⌘S
• Save As: ⌘⇧S
• Save All: ⌘⇧⌥S (saves all open modified tabs at once)

Session Restore

Tab.Noted automatically restores all file-backed tabs when you relaunch. Your cursor position and scroll position are preserved.

The Tab Bar

• Tabs resize fluidly based on how many are open
• Drag tabs left or right to reorder them
• Pin a tab: Right-click a tab → Pin Tab. Pinned tabs stay open across sessions even without being saved
• Close a tab: Click the × on the tab, or press ⌘W
• Reopen last closed tab: ⌘⇧T
• Next tab: ⌘⇧]
• Previous tab: ⌘⇧[
• Switch to last used tab: ⌃Tab

The Editor

Basic Editing

• Line numbers appear in the left gutter
• Current line is highlighted for easy tracking
• Auto-indent — pressing Enter matches the indentation of the current line
• Auto-pair — typing (, [, {, ", or ' automatically inserts the closing character
• Smart Home key — pressing Home toggles between the first non-whitespace character and column 0
• Smart word highlighting — rest the cursor on any word to highlight all other occurrences in the file (blue tint). Clears automatically when you start typing or make a selection

Zoom

• Zoom In: ⌘=
• Zoom Out: ⌘−
• Reset to actual size: ⌘0
• You can also zoom with ⌘+scroll on a trackpad

Word Wrap

Toggle word wrap with ⌘⌥W. Word wrap is a per-tab setting — each tab remembers its own preference.

Code Folding

• Fold/unfold { } blocks by clicking the triangle in the gutter
• Fold All: View → Fold All
• Unfold All: View → Unfold All

Overwrite Mode

Toggle between Insert and Overwrite mode from the status bar at the bottom of the window.

Column Selection (Block Selection)

Hold Option and drag the mouse to select a rectangular block of text across multiple lines.

Find & Replace

Open with ⌘F or Search → Find & Replace.

Options

• Case sensitive — match exact letter case
• Whole word — match only complete words
• Regex — use regular expressions for advanced pattern matching
• Find Next / Previous — navigate through matches
• Replace — replace the current match
• Replace All — replace every match in the document (fully undoable with ⌘Z)

Search Across Files

• Search in All Files: ⌘⇧F — searches across all currently open tabs
• Find in Folder: ⌘⌥F — search within any folder on disk

Navigation

Quick Open (⌘P)

Press ⌘P to open the Quick Open panel. Type any filename or tab name to jump to it instantly. This also works as a tab switcher.

Go to Line

Press ⌘L and type a line number to jump directly to that line.

Go to Symbol

Search → Go to Symbol (⌘⇧O) — jump to functions, classes, or named sections in the current file.

Bookmarks

• Toggle bookmark at the current line: ⌘⌥B
• Next bookmark: ⌘⌥]
• Previous bookmark: ⌘⌥[
• Clear all bookmarks: Search → Clear All Bookmarks
• Bookmarks appear as markers in the gutter

Go to Matching Bracket

⌘⌥\ — jumps to the bracket, brace, or parenthesis that pairs with the one at the cursor.

Git Gutter

Tab.Noted shows colored markers in the gutter for any line changed since the file was last saved — green for new lines, orange for modified lines. This works without a git repository: it compares your current edits against the file's last saved state on disk, not git history.

• Click any orange marker to see a popover with the text that was there before your edit
• Toggle Git Gutter on or off from the View menu

Editing Tools

Line Operations

All found in Edit → Format:

Case Conversion

All found in Edit → Format: UPPERCASE, lowercase, Title Case, camelCase, snake_case, Invert Case, Sentence Case.

Whitespace

• Trim Trailing Whitespace — remove spaces/tabs at the end of lines
• Trim Leading Whitespace — remove spaces/tabs at the start of lines
• Trim on Save — automatically trim trailing whitespace every time you save
• Convert Tabs to Spaces / Spaces to Tabs

Toggle Comment

⌘/ — comment or uncomment the current line or selection. Works for all supported languages using the correct comment syntax.

Select All Occurrences

⌘⇧L — selects every occurrence of the currently selected text, enabling simultaneous editing.

Multiple Cursors

• Add cursor above: ⌃⇧↑
• Add cursor below: ⌃⇧↓
• Edit multiple locations simultaneously

Select to Bracket

⌘⌥⇧[ — selects everything inside the nearest enclosing bracket pair.

Insert Utilities (Edit menu)

• Insert Date/Time: ⌘⌥D
• Insert UUID: ⌘⌥U
• Pick Color: ⌘⌥K — opens a color picker; detects hex color at the cursor

Clipboard History

⌘⇧V — opens Clipboard History showing your recent copies, so you can paste any previous item.

Copy as Rich Text

⌘⇧⌥C — copies your selection with syntax highlighting colors as RTF, which pastes with color into Notion, Pages, email clients, and similar apps.

JSON & XML Tools

JSON Tools

• Format JSON (Edit → Format → Format JSON) — pretty-prints JSON with sorted keys
• Minify JSON — collapses JSON to a single line
• JSON Viewer (Tools → JSON Viewer) — shows a structured tree panel alongside the editor for the current JSON file

XML Tools

• Format XML (Edit → Format → Format XML) — indents and formats XML
• Check XML Well-Formedness — validates that your XML is correctly structured

Syntax Highlighting

Tab.Noted automatically detects the language of a file from its extension and applies syntax highlighting.

Changing the Language Manually

Use the Language menu to override the detected language for the current tab. This is useful for files without extensions or files with ambiguous extensions.

Supported Languages (50+)

• Web: HTML, CSS, SCSS, Less, JavaScript, TypeScript, JSX, TSX, Svelte, Vue
• Systems: Swift, Objective-C, Rust, C, C++, C#, Go, Zig, Assembly
• General Purpose: Python, Ruby, Java, Kotlin, Scala, PHP, Lua, Perl, Dart, Groovy, R, Elixir, F#, VB.NET
• Data & Config: JSON, XML, YAML, TOML, INI, SQL, Markdown, HCL, GraphQL, Protobuf, Jinja2, LaTeX
• Shell & DevOps: Shell/Bash/Zsh/Fish, PowerShell, Dockerfile, Makefile, CMake, Nix
• Security: YARA, Suricata
• Other: Diff/Patch, Log files, Plain Text

Themes

Tab.Noted includes 12 built-in themes that style the editor and syntax highlighting colors:

• Default — clean light/dark theme
• 8-Bit — retro terminal style
• White & Black — monochrome, distraction-free
• Retro — vivid, saturated colors
• Dusk — warm dark tones
• Ember — high-contrast warm palette
• Original — the original Tab.Noted palette
• Dracula — the popular dark purple palette
• Monokai — classic vivid dark theme
• One Dark — the Atom-inspired dark theme
• Solarized — the balanced low-contrast palette
• Gruvbox — a warm, retro-contrast palette that follows your system's light/dark setting

Want your own colors? Build a custom theme with the Theme Builder (Settings → Appearance → Custom Syntax Theme).

You can set separate themes for light mode and dark mode.

IOC Highlighting

Tab.Noted automatically detects and highlights common security indicators in plain text and log files:

• IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
• URLs
• MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-256 file hashes
• CVE identifiers (e.g. CVE-2024-12345)

No configuration needed — this runs automatically whenever you open a .log file or a plain text file.

YARA Rule Linting

When editing .yar or .yara files, Tab.Noted checks your rules for common mistakes as you type:

• Missing condition: sections
• Duplicate string identifiers
• String identifiers referenced in a condition but never defined
• Unbalanced braces

Problems are marked with a red dot in the gutter and a red underline under the affected line. Click the dot to see the exact error. Toggle this from View → Diagnostics.

Views & Panels

Minimap

Toggle: ⌘⌥M or View → Minimap. Shows a scaled overview of the entire document on the right side of the editor — click anywhere on the minimap to jump to that position.

File Browser

Toggle: ⌘⇧B or View → File Browser. Opens a folder tree sidebar for navigating your project — click any file to open it in a new tab.

Markdown Preview

Toggle: ⌘⇧R or View → Markdown Preview. Renders a live preview of the current Markdown file alongside the editor.

Hex Editor

Open: Tools → Hex View. Shows the raw binary content of the current file as a hex dump — useful for inspecting binary files, executables, or any file at the byte level.

Split Pane

Split the editor into two independent panes — each pane has its own tab strip, so each side can show a different file. Toggle from the toolbar Split button or View → Split View. Choose horizontal or vertical direction in Settings.

Document Statistics

Open: ⌘⇧I or Tools → Document Statistics. Shows word count, character count, line count, and more for the current file.

Word Frequency

Open: Tools → Word Frequency. Counts how often each word appears in the current document.

Compare Tabs (File Diff)

Open: ⌘⌥⇧D or Tools → Compare Tabs. Side-by-side diff of any two open tabs.

File Information

Right-click any tab → File Information. Shows the file's kind, size, full path, created and modified dates, and a Reveal in Finder button. The panel remembers its position.

Zen Mode

Toggle: ⌃⌘F or View → Enter Zen Mode. Hides all UI chrome for distraction-free writing or reading.

Macros

Macros let you record a sequence of keystrokes and replay them.

Recording

1. Start recording: ⌘⇧M (Macro → Start / Stop Recording)
2. Perform your keystrokes
3. Stop recording: ⌘⇧M again

Playback

• Play once: ⌘⇧P
• Play multiple times: Macro → Run Macro Multiple Times — enter a number (1–9999)

Saving Macros

Macro → Saved Macros opens the Macro Library where you can name and save macros for future use.

Snippets

Snippets are reusable text templates that expand when you type a trigger word and press Tab.

• Manage snippets: Tools → Manage Snippets
• Create a snippet with a trigger keyword and body text
• Type the trigger in the editor and press Tab to expand it

Script Runner

Run the current file directly from the editor. Open from Run → Run Script (⌘R) or the ▶ button in the Action Bar. Output streams into a panel below the editor.

Supported languages

• Save the file first (⌘S) — the runner executes the file on disk
• The working directory is set to the file's folder
• Press Stop to terminate a running process
• Homebrew-installed tools are found automatically

Encoding

Use the Encoding menu to convert the current file to a different character encoding. Supported encoding groups include UTF-8, UTF-16, Latin, Windows, ISO, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Central European, and more.

Line Endings (EOL)

• Convert to Windows (CRLF): \r\n — standard for Windows
• Convert to Unix (LF): \n — standard for macOS and Linux
• Convert to Classic Mac (CR): \r — legacy format

Tab Groups (Workspaces)

Tab groups let you save and switch between named sets of open tabs — useful for separating projects.

• Create a new tab group: File → New Tab Group (⌘⌥T)
• Tab groups appear in the workspace selector in the toolbar
• Each group saves and restores its own set of tabs

Action Bar

The Action Bar is a customizable toolbar that sits above the tab bar with one-click access to common actions.

• Toggle: View → Action Bar
• Customize: View → Customize Action Bar — add, remove, or reorder buttons

Auto-Save & Recovery

Auto-Save

• Enable in Settings or toggle with View → Auto Save
• Automatic mode: saves 1.5 seconds after you stop typing
• Scheduled mode: saves every 5, 10, or 30 minutes (configurable in Settings)

Crash Recovery

If Tab.Noted closes unexpectedly, your unsaved content is recovered automatically on next launch. Recovery files are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/TabNoted.

Auto-Reload

When a file is changed on disk by another application, Tab.Noted detects it and prompts you to reload. If you have unsaved changes, it warns you before overwriting.

Appearance & Customization

Color Mode

Settings → Appearance → Color Mode: Light (always light), Dark (always dark), or Follow System (matches your macOS appearance setting).

Font

Settings → Font: choose from Menlo, SF Mono, Monaco, Courier New, or Fira Code. Font size 10–24pt.

Custom Syntax Theme

Settings → Appearance → Custom Syntax Theme (or View → Custom Theme Builder): customize colors for every syntax token (keywords, strings, comments, etc.), with separate customization for light and dark mode.

Per-Project Settings

Place a .tabnoted file in your project root (or any parent folder) to override editor settings for all files in that directory tree. Tab.Noted walks up to 6 levels to find it.

{
  "tabSize": 2,
  "useTabs": false,
  "wordWrap": true,
  "language": "TypeScript",
  "trimOnSave": true
}

Settings Reference

Open Settings with ⌘, or Tab.Noted → Settings.

Editor Toggles (Settings → Tabs)

• Line numbers
• Highlight current line
• Show whitespace characters
• Show indent guides
• Bracket match highlighting
• Auto-pair brackets and quotes
• Column ruler (80 / 120 columns)
• Code folding
• Spell check
• Minimap
• Sticky scroll
• Word wrap
• Scroll past end
• Auto-reload files
• Auto-save

Keyboard Shortcut Reference

Every shortcut below is fully customizable. Open Settings → Shortcuts, click Record next to any action, and press your preferred key combination. If that combination is already assigned elsewhere, Tab.Noted offers to swap the two automatically. Use Reset All to Defaults at any time to restore the bindings shown below.

File

Navigation

Search

Edit

View

Tools

Macro

Help

Tools Menu Reference

Help Menu Reference

Frequently Asked Questions

What macOS version do I need?

macOS 13 Ventura or later. Tab.Noted runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

Does Tab.Noted work offline?

Yes, entirely. No internet connection is ever required. The one exception is Markdown preview, which loads syntax highlighting from a CDN on first render — it works offline but renders plain without internet.

What file types does Tab.Noted open?

Any plain text file. Tab.Noted recognizes 50+ languages by file extension and applies syntax highlighting automatically. It can also open any file in the hex editor.

My tabs didn't restore after I quit. Why?

Only file-backed tabs (tabs with saved files) restore on relaunch. Untitled tabs that were never saved cannot be restored. When you quit with unsaved untitled tabs, Tab.Noted will prompt you to save them before closing.

How do I change the theme?

Settings (⌘,) → Appearance → choose one of the 12 built-in themes. You can set different themes for light and dark mode.

How do I change the font?

Settings (⌘,) → Font — choose the font family and size.

How do I open a whole project folder?

Enable the File Browser (⌘⇧B or View → File Browser), then click the folder icon to open any folder as a tree. Click any file in the tree to open it in a tab.

How do I compare two files?

Open both files in separate tabs, then use Tools → Compare Tabs (⌘⌥⇧D) to see a side-by-side diff.

How do I search across all open files?

Press ⌘⇧F or Search → Search in All Files.

How do I record a macro?

Press ⌘⇧M to start recording, perform your keystrokes, then press ⌘⇧M again to stop. Play it back with ⌘⇧P.

Can I use Tab.Noted to edit binary files?

Yes — use Tools → Hex View to open any file in the hex editor and inspect its raw bytes.

How do I convert line endings?

Use the Encoding menu → Convert to Windows (CRLF), Unix (LF), or Classic Mac (CR).

How do I add custom snippets?

Tools → Manage Snippets → create a snippet with a trigger word. Type the trigger in the editor and press Tab to expand it.

How do I make Tab.Noted always stay on top of other windows?

View → Always on Top.

Why does Tab.Noted slow down with very large files?

Tab.Noted is built on Apple's native macOS text framework, which processes the entire document before displaying it. For most files this is instant, but files over roughly 50 MB — especially those with hundreds of thousands of lines — take longer to load and may feel sluggish while the editor gets ready.

To help, Tab.Noted automatically detects large files and switches to a lightweight mode: syntax highlighting is turned off and word wrap is disabled to keep the editor as responsive as possible. An orange Large File badge appears in the status bar so you always know which mode is active. This is a current limitation of the underlying Apple framework; improving large file performance is on the roadmap for a future update.

Contact & Support

Didn't find what you needed? Use the contact form — we typically reply within 48 hours.