Subtext appears to be a legitimate app. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Subtext is 90 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.

Subtext Reviews: Is It Legit?

Name: Subtext
Rating: 4.5 (89 reviews)

Subtext

Charcoal Design

🔧 Utilities

🛠️ Developer Tools

Customer Experience

Positive experience82.2% of reviews

Neutral9.9% of reviews

Negative experience7.9% of reviews

~ Based on 101 written reviews from the US App Store.

What users say about Subtext

Reviews of Subtext are mostly positive: the Developer Tools app is rated 4.5/5 from 89 App Store ratings. What users like most: simple and efficient, fast and lightweight. Top complaints: fails on network drives, data corruption risk. Summarized from real user reviews.

Positive things

👍Simple and efficient
🚀Fast and lightweight
🆓Free and no ads
✨Clean and intuitive UI
📂Seamless Files app integration
🔢Line numbers included
💡No bloatware
🌍Works well on iPad
🔒Privacy-respecting
📝Great for plain text editing
👆Easy to use
🌟Minimalist design
🔄Supports various encodings
📂Integrates with iCloud/Dropbox
♿Accessible with VoiceOver

Negative things

🐛Fails on network drives
🐛Data corruption risk
🐛Difficulty unselecting text
🐛Buggy Chinese input method
🐛Random capitalization issues
🐛Large files cause errors
🐛No cancel option for save/exit
🐛Picky about file extensions
🐛Cannot edit non-text files
🐛Autosave can be problematic
🐛No always-on tab key
🐛Default focus to EOF
🐛Chinese input method errors
🐛File saving issues

Is Subtext Safe?

Subtext appears safe based on user ratings. AppsHunter Safety Score for Subtext is 86/100.

This assessment is based on 89 user ratings, with an App Store average of 4.5/5.

Safety Analysis

84.3% of ratings point to a safe experience

9.0% of ratings suggest some concerns

6.7% of ratings point to a risky experience

~ Based on 89 App Store ratings for Subtext.

Is Subtext Legit?

Subtext appears to be a legitimate app. AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Subtext is 90/100.

Based on 90 of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.

Top reviews

Most Recent Highest Rated Lowest Rated

No way to turn off line numbers.

I was glad to find what I thought was a great free plain text editor. Unfortunately there’s no option to turn off line numbers, they’re added automatically. I can’t imagine why this was thought to be a good setting without any option to turn it off. Would be a useful app otherwise. My search continues.

RReadingDecibels

3 days ago

Genau sowas habe ich gesucht

Ich muss einfach nochmal bestätigen: Einfacher Text Editor mit Zeilen Nummern. Ohne Adds und In-App.

RRaBeDE

4 days ago

Response from developer

Danke für die tolle Bewertung!

Privacy?

A nice little tool, however after installation, the editor seems to have immediate and full access to all my files in the iCloud. There does not appear to be a step asking for permission.

T9Tttt 97

10 days ago

Response from developer

Hi, sorry for any alarm, but please be assured that Subtext does not have unfettered access to your files. Such access is prohibited by the iOS sandbox. Only files that you specifically choose to share with Subtext can be accessed. What you are seeing when you first open the app is the standard Apple document browser control (if you open Apple's Files app you will see that the interface is identical). Although the control is being displayed inside the Subtext app, it's contents are private, and Subtext cannot actually see any of your files until you explicitly open them, which is why no additional permissions are required or requested. You can read more about this mechanism here if you are interested in the technical details: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/474726 Furthermore, Subtext runs entirely locally on your device. Even when you open and edit a file in Subtext, nothing is transmitted or synced to any server or external cloud hosting except to your own devices via your own iCloud account.

Doesn't need improving.

Simple. Just works. Data stays on ipad. Great notes app.

MMulagatawney

a month ago

Response from developer

Thanks! Glad you're enjoying Subtext.

Simply great

I use an excellent App called ‘Scrap Paper’ which is a single page where I jot down notes etc. However it does not have a search capability.
I started testing your App and it fills the gap. Thanks.

UBUndercover agent for the blues

2 months ago

Response from developer

Thanks! Glad you're enjoying Subtext.

Simple and light

Does " search & replace " that is missing in "Notes" app

JJmiperds

2 months ago

Great, But Recent Updates Broke It

This is a great basic text editor. No fancy features, no unnecessary bloat, and no price tag. It's perfect for editing plain text! However, something changed after a recent update. For some unknown reason, the "Recent" tab now displays everything single file available in Apple Files. Text files, images, everything. Maybe it's always been this way and I never noticed. Regardless, I now have 260 files listed when there should only be maybe 10, and any files I add or modify in Apple Files becomes the latest one in Subtext, too. It kind of defeats the purpose of the Recents tab… Otherwise, it's been treating me very well!

JJCollins2048

2 months ago

Response from developer

Thanks for the great review! The change to show all files was so that people could open text files that don't have a .txt extension, or another known text format like json, etc. I agree the situation with recent files is not ideal - I will try to find a better solution.

Awesome - but missing something

absolutely incredible feel and look, but personally what’s stops me using it more is that there is no syntax highlighting for code, that feature would be incredible and would make me use it more. Also think that the option for Vim Motions would make the keyboard experience so much nicer but overall love the app. thank you for your amazing work

BVBen vL

2 months ago

Response from developer

Thanks for the review! I've been wary of adding features such as syntax highlighting for risk of bloating the app interface, but it's definitely something I'm looking into

Simple Text Editor

I wanted a simple text editor so I could edit text files in the Files app. It works as intended and meets my needs.

RRaina-Raina

2 months ago

Perfect

This is exactly what I need and no more. What wonderful minimalism.

Jjthile

2 months ago

a must for ios

a must to compensate ios Files app deficiency. ty sir 👍👍👍🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
just a comment to improve it even better: i wish to edit nontext files without changing them to text file
———————————————-
got your kind reply
great thanx and looking forward the PERFECT 1.2.5 version 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

6632hd

2 months ago

Response from developer

Thanks for the great review! I've added support for all file types in version 1.2.5

One flaw

Subtext is a perfect example of a developer successfully coding a slim, efficient, easy to use, and very popular text editor. UPDATE: minus two stars - no way to copy/paste without line numbers.

Ddonmontalvo

3 months ago

Perfect for all text editing

I used this to quickly edit small CSS and JavaScript files too. Despite the small size this is the best simple text edit app by far. Tried 3 other apps today and deleted them all to return to Subtext. Don’t bother with others, this is what you want.

WWilmaShin

4 months ago

Response from developer

Thanks so much for the great review!

You will lose your work

How am I supposed to review this? It is, in fact, the only .txt editor on the app store without an insane price tag, or clearly unneeded fluff added. But three times now, it has failed to save my work, and I’ve lost what I was working on. It’s not a crash, the app doesn’t close, it just randomly decides everything you typed in the last 20 minutes never happened. There’s no way to communicate with the developer, to try and figure out what’s happening, or how to fix it. So - my first review.

Rrobotkarma

4 months ago

Response from developer

I'm so sorry to hear you've had this issue, that sounds incredibly frustrating. I've added some fixes to version 1.2.5 that should hopefully prevent this from happening again, but if you do encounter this issue again with the new version please contact support@charcoaldesign.co.uk

a must for ios

a must to compensate ios Files app deficiency. ty sir 👍👍👍🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
just a comment to improve it even better: i wish to edit nontext files without changing them to text file

6632hd

4 months ago

Pros & Cons

Bad news:
the review regarding poor network behaviour is making me feel like I want to delete the app forthwith. 😖

I couldn't find a cancel option, the 'X' to exit is a save&exit; no always what I want to do. A duplicate option used every time before editing should take care of screwed editing. 🤔

Good news.
I program in MacOs Bash which occasionally spits out script line numbers in its error messages: no other method but to count the lines! Subtext has line numbering ❤️

The UI is clean, well designed and intuitive.
Turning my phone on its side, the display rotated with it 🙂

It connected to the Files app seamlessly for selecting the file to edit. 🙂

The ... & V menu options and are just what I would expect, untested but 🙂

I hope the author of my review takes this in the spirit it is given, constructive feedback.

Yes, I'm keeping it. The are many I've investigated, this is the best I've seen

JJeff~B

4 months ago

Response from developer

Thanks for the review! Version 1.2.6 adds a manual save button for network-hosted files which should hopefully solve the autosave problem. Please get in touch at support@charcoaldesign.co.uk if you have any further issues.

bug jumps to top of doc

jump to top of page when trying set cursor on a blank line...

FDf free dcvvbj

5 months ago

Excellent text editor

Subtext is ideal for me as a text editor. Simple interface, line numbers, line wrap or not, encoding choices. It shows in the share sheet.

Subtext is a terrific editor, no ads, completely free.

Iinthesand

5 months ago

Response from developer

Thanks for the great review!

Danke für diese App

Ich kann damit meine .txt Datei erstellen und meine ganze .js erstellen und bearbeiten für meine Browser die ich immer brauche. Ein muss auf jede iPhone den ich in Zukunft benutzen werden großen Dank an den Entwickler 🙏🏻 weiter so 😇

JJudge.D

5 months ago

Response from developer

Danke für die tolle Bewertung - ich freue mich, dass dir Subtext gefällt!

Super!

Wirklich perfekt wenn man zum Beispiel ein Text in den Dateien speichert. Man konnte es bis jetzt nicht bearbeiten. Aber diese Lücke wird von Subtext wirklich perfekt geschlossen! Mega. Bin kein bot btw✌️

VValtric.rl

5 months ago