How to make TextEdit start with a blank file already open (Mac) : Joshua Lowcock

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I recently switch from Windows to Mac. I still have a laptop that runs Windows for gaming, but a Mac is now my daily driver. One of the things I miss about Windows is that when you start Notepad it is already open with a blank file.

On the Mac (Monterey) TextEdit opens with a file picker, which is a little frustrating. Especially if you’re like me and a heavy user of text editors for everything from using as a scratchpad, fast editing, code snippets, etc. I just want a blank file ready to go, not another click and decision-making. Well, the good news is you can make TextEdit on the Mac default to a blank already open file when you run it, all you need to do is follow these steps.

This is one of the first things I do when I get Mac.

How to make TextEdit Start with a blank file.

Start the Mac Terminal app.
In the terminal command line, paste the following line of code, followed by return.

defaults write com.apple.TextEdit NSShowAppCentricOpenPanelInsteadOfUntitledFile -bool false

Quit Terminal. Restart your Mac. You’re done!

If you want to reverse the change (not judging you) then open Mac Terminal again and paste in this line of code.

defaults delete com.apple.TextEdit NSShowAppCentricOpenPanelInsteadOfUntitledFile

Don’t forget, you will need to restart your Mac to save the change.

Hope this helps

If you’re after more posts I have written about the Mac and macOS, you can check out this link. I document various macOS bug fixes, hacks and. tweaks to make macOS better. I also list my favorite free macOS apps.