TinyTextEditorVersion 1.0
A fast, private text editor for Mac
For everyone who cares about privacy and performance, and fine-tuned for coders. TTE: TinyTextEditor opens a 5 GB file in 23 ms and has no network access at all.
Opens a 5 GB log in 23 ms
The first screen appears before the file is indexed. The line index for 57 million lines is ready in 413 ms, built in the background while you scroll and type.
A keystroke takes 0.47 ms. About 35 times faster than one frame on a 60 Hz display.
Shorter is faster
5,000 ms
- Duration of one frame on a 60 Hz display reference16.67 ms
- A keystroke, median0.47 ms
- Open a 5 GB file23 ms
- Open a 2 GB single line29 ms
- Launch to first frameabout 136 ms
- Other editors and IDEs, launch estimate1,000 to 5,000 ms
Measured in the real editor on 10 November 2026, on an Apple M5 Max with 64 GB of RAM and a 120 Hz display. The files were already in the page cache.
- Files are read with
pread, never mapped - The line index costs 8 bytes per 64 KB of file
- The document is a persistent tree
- Long lines are cut into 4 KB segments
- Each row is its own layer, moved on the GPU
| Measure | 1 GB, 11M lines | 5 GB, 57M lines | 2 GB in one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open to first paint | 23 ms | 23 ms | 29 ms |
| Line index ready | 110 ms | 413 ms | 198 ms |
| Scroll frame, median | 0.07 ms | 0.07 ms | 0.25 ms |
| Fast fling frame, median | 0.45 ms | 0.47 ms | 1.0 ms |
| Keystroke at typing pace, median / 99th | 0.47 / 1.6 ms | 0.48 / 1.5 ms | 4.4 / 6.9 ms |
| Memory after opening | 40 MB | 40 MB | 50 MB |
| Memory, idle after heavy use | 70 MB | 71 MB | 82 MB |
Times include committing the frame to Core Animation. Literal search runs at 3.9 GB/s and regex search at about 83 MB/s.
The chart’s last bar is an estimate: we installed and timed no other editor. Zed’s published comparison, read 10 November 2026, gives under 1 second for its own launch and 3 to 5 seconds or more for VS Code with extensions, and the label gives that whole range. The bar is drawn solid to 3.75 seconds, a point inside the range given for VS Code, and hatched from there to 5. All the bars share one scale. At that scale a keystroke would be about a tenth of a pixel wide, so it is drawn as a single line.
Built and optimized for the Mac. 49× faster than TextEdit at 5 GB.
| Measure | TinyTextEditor | VS Code | IntelliJ IDEA | Sublime Text | TextEdit | Windows Notepad |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | Handcrafted, optimized and fine‑tuned for Apple silicon Macs | Three platforms, one Electron runtime | Three platforms, one Java runtime | Mac, Windows, Linux | The Mac. Comes with macOS | Windows. Comes with Windows |
| Launch | 0.24 s Over 2× faster than TextEdit, from click to ready to use | 3 to 5 s or more, says Zed | Not published | Not published | 0.57 s measured, same test | Not published |
| Open a 5 GB file | 0.27 s 49× faster than TextEdit. 23 ms once running | 30 MB then highlighting and folding turn off | 20 MB by default; 2.5 MB for code assistance | No limit published | 13.3 s from closed, measured | 1 GB or so, then it refuses the file |
| Memory and disk | 40 MB 120× less than TextEdit with 5 GB open. A 4.6 MB app | 1 GB of RAM, under 500 MB of disk | 8 GB of RAM, 10 GB of disk, 4 cores | Not published | 5 GB with that file open, measured | Not published |
| What leaves it | Nothing No network access, enforced by macOS | Usage and crash data unless turned off; Copilot if signed in | Error reports by default; usage data and AI if you opt in | A licence check, say its staff. No privacy policy published | iCloud, Apple Intelligence, analytics, if turned on | AI features send your text to Microsoft once signed in |
TinyTextEditor and TextEdit were timed on the same Mac on 11 November 2026, from asking macOS to open the closed app until its window was on screen: warm launches, no document. That reads about 0.1 s more than the 136 ms above, which starts with the process. Everything else is published, read 10 and 11 November 2026. VS Code: Electron, large files, requirements, telemetry, Copilot; its launch time is Zed’s figure, not Microsoft’s. IntelliJ IDEA: file limits, runtime and requirements, data sharing, AI Assistant. Sublime Text: licence check and data collection. TextEdit: iCloud and Writing Tools, Apple Intelligence, analytics. Notepad: size limit, AI features. “Not published” means the maker gives no figure.
Nothing leaves your Mac
TinyTextEditor ships with no network entitlement, so macOS itself refuses any connection the app could attempt. There is no telemetry, no account and no auto-update.
- Reads only the files and folders you choose
- Contains no third-party code and loads no plugins
- Saves atomically, so a failed save leaves the original untouched
Multiple cursors work the way an IDE’s do
⌃G selects the word under the cursor, then adds each next occurrence. Every cursor types, moves and deletes together.
⌃⇧↓ adds a cursor on the line below. Six lines take one edit, and ⌘→ sends every cursor to the end of its own line.
Copy with four selections and paste with four cursors: each cursor receives its own line, in order.
⌥↑ grows the selection from word to call to line, and ⌥↓ shrinks it. ⌥⇧↓ moves the line and ⌘D duplicates it.
The films are the real app, recorded frame by frame. They play when this section is on screen.
Editing commands on IntelliJ’s keymap
Syntax highlighting covers 30 languages, from Swift, Rust and Python to SQL, JSON and Markdown.
⌃G selects the next occurrence. You can also split a selection into lines, add cursors above and below, or Option-drag a column.
Press ⌘P for Goto Anything and type part of a name, or name:line to land on a line. ⇧⌘P opens every menu command.
Press ⇧⌘F to search the open folder, with regex if you want it. Results open as a document, and clicking a match opens the file at that line.
