Ulysses
A long-running Mac writing environment from Ulysses GmbH & Co. KG that stores projects in a unified library, keeps you in a distraction-free markup editor, and exports finished work to common publishing formats.
Typical Mac workflow
You structure novels, articles, or study notes as sheets inside groups and projects, then write in Ulysses’ markup-based editor without stopping to format every heading or emphasis. Goals and deadlines track daily output; a built-in grammar and style assistant covers more than twenty languages. When a draft is ready, Quick Export turns it into PDF, DOCX, ePub, or HTML using built-in or custom style sheets, and you can publish directly to WordPress, Ghost, or Micro.blog with tags, categories, and images from inside the app.
iCloud sync keeps the library consistent across Mac, iPad, and iPhone, which suits writers who capture ideas on mobile and polish on a Mac. The interface has earned an Apple Design Award and recent releases added Liquid Glass styling, editor splits, Shortcuts support, and richer PDF and DOCX export through the Ulysses Style Sheet language. Version 40 expanded export controls with custom headers and footers, capitalization options, baseline-grid alignment for PDF, and native OMML math export for Microsoft Word.
Licensing and version 40.1
Ulysses requires a subscription through the Mac App Store: about $5.99 per month or $39.99 per year, with a reduced student plan and a free trial that includes sync and export. Family Sharing covers up to six people on one subscription. The app needs macOS 14.0 Sonoma or later on Mac and is also available through Setapp. Version 40.1 is a maintenance build: the Mac App Store What’s New text lists various bug fixes and tweaks, and the public release-notes page at ulysses.app has not yet published a detailed 40.1 changelog beyond the earlier version 40 entry from May 2026.
