How to Make TextEdit Default to Plain Text on Mac

TextEdit opens every new document as rich text — bold buttons, a ruler, and files that save as .rtf. If what you actually write is code snippets, configs, and notes, plain text is the right default, and it's one radio button away. Here's the switch, the conversion shortcut, and the settings worth changing while you're in there.

Change the default format

1. Open TextEdit and choose TextEdit → Settings… (Cmd + ,).
2. On the New Document tab, under Format, select Plain Text.
3. Close the settings. Every new document (Cmd + N) now opens plain — no ruler, no formatting bar, and it saves as .txt.

The same switch exists as a real defaults key if you're setting up a Mac from a script:

# make new TextEdit documents plain text (quit TextEdit first)
defaults write com.apple.TextEdit RichText -bool false

# undo: restore rich text as the default
defaults delete com.apple.TextEdit RichText

Relaunch TextEdit after either command — it reads the preference at launch.

Convert documents you already have

Changing the default doesn't touch existing files, and opening an .rtf still shows rich text. To convert the document in front of you, press Shift + Cmd + T — Format → Make Plain Text. Formatting is stripped (bold, colors, and embedded images are discarded — that's the point, but it's one-way once saved), and saving now produces .txt. The same shortcut toggles the other direction: Make Rich Text appears in the menu when you're in a plain document and need formatting for one file without changing your default.

Settings worth changing while you're there

• Plain text font — the New Document tab has a separate font for plain documents. Click Change… and pick a monospaced face like Menlo or SF Mono; aligned columns make configs and code fragments dramatically easier to read.
• Window size — set the default width in characters and height in lines; 100 characters wide suits code better than the narrow default.
• Smart quotes and dashes — under Options, turn these off for plain text work. Curly quotes are poison in code and shell commands: "command" pasted into Terminal fails in ways that are miserable to debug.
• On the Open and Save tab: check Display HTML files as HTML code instead of formatted text if you ever open web files — otherwise TextEdit renders the page and hides your markup.

Is TextEdit enough as a plain editor?

For quick edits, configs, and README files — absolutely; it launches instantly and it's on every Mac. It won't do syntax highlighting or multi-file projects, and heavy lifting belongs in a real code editor. But a plain-text TextEdit with Menlo and smart quotes off is a genuinely good scratchpad, and it stops the classic macOS trap: pasting a command into a rich-text document, letting smart quotes mangle it, and mailing someone a broken snippet.

Converting a backlog of .rtf files

If years of rich-text default left you with a folder of .rtf notes, you don't have to open them one at a time — macOS ships a converter:

# convert every .rtf in the current folder to plain .txt
cd ~/Documents/Notes
textutil -convert txt *.rtf

# undo: the originals are untouched — just delete the new .txt files
rm *.txt

textutil writes a .txt beside each original and leaves the .rtf files alone, so the operation is risk-free — verify the conversions, then archive or delete whichever set you don't want. It converts in the other direction too (-convert rtf, -convert html, -convert docx), which makes it the quiet workhorse for any format cleanup.