# Subtext — user reviews > 94 indexed App Store user reviews of Subtext by Charcoal Design, rated 4.50/5 from 79 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/subtext/id1606625287/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/subtext/id1606625287.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 61 · 4★ 6 · 3★ 7 · 2★ 2 · 1★ 3 ## What do users think of Subtext? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 👍 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 **Cons** - 🐛 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 **Commonly reported bugs** - Fails to save work - Jumps to top of document on blank lines - Poor network behavior leading to data corruption - Cannot open or create new text files - Error when saving to network drive - Cannot edit .tex files without renaming - Chinese input method errors - Random capitalization after paste - Large text files cause errors - File saving issues, creates extra copies - Bug when using Chinese input method with delete key **Most requested features** - Add 'Unselect all' option - Add 'Replace all' function - Add font size settings - Add tab key - Allow editing of non-text files - Improve network drive handling - Option to disable auto-save - Add highlighter - Add character count - Add JetBrains Mono font - Add 'reopen last file' option - Add widget support - Add highlighting - Add font and background color settings - Add distraction-free mode - Add swipe to close gesture - Option to release focus for collapsing skb - Fix Chinese input method bugs - Allow editing of files with arbitrary extensions - Add Chinese input method bug fixes ## Newest reviews (10 of 94) ### 4/5 — Great, But Recent Updates Broke It *2026-08-26* 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! ### 4/5 — Awesome - but missing something *2026-08-24* 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 **Developer response:** 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 ### 4/5 — bug jumps to top of doc *2026-06-16, version 1.2.4* jump to top of page when trying set cursor on a blank line... ### 4/5 — Great, needs one feature *2026-04-11* Love this app. But after using “Select all” it is difficult to unselect the selection. It would be great if the developer would add a “Unselect all” to the app. Otherwise it works great. **Developer response:** Thanks for the review! I'll look into adding this feature ### 5/5 — Excellent *2026-02-26* Simple text editor that works on an iPad. **Developer response:** Thanks for the great review! ### 3/5 — good *2026-01-26, version 1.2.3* 小型文本打開體驗感不錯，但打開大文本(133Mb)時，提示錯誤，打不開 ### 4/5 — Q&A *2025-12-31* Can set the size of font、switch font、backagecolor of text area next version？？？ **Developer response:** You can adjust the Subtext font in the iOS settings app - see: https://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-use-per-app-settings-on-iphone/ or contact support@charcoaldesign.co.uk and I'll walk you through the process ### 5/5 — Yes *2025-11-13, version 1.2.3* I love the simplicity of it. ### 5/5 — Toller Editor *2025-11-09* Tut was er soll. Editieren von Text ohne viel schnick schnack. Und das auch noch Gratis. **Developer response:** Danke für die tolle Bewertung! ### 4/5 — finally *2025-10-26* a text editor that does not start a major program accidentally. that’s progress in the appl world. took years. unfortunately it uses icloud for backup. not sure yet how to avoid that. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Too picky about extensions!!! *2026-05-19, version 1.2.3* I have a renamed xml file with a different extension and it won't let me open it unless I rename it to txt first then rename it back after editing!!!!! Please fix! ### 1/5 — unbrauchbar *2026-03-11* wenn ich versuche eine neue Text-Datei anzulegen rödelt die App eine Weile rum und sagt dann: unable to open file; dito wenn ich versuche eine vorhandene Text-Datei zu öffnen **Developer response:** Das klingt sehr frustrierend. Bitte kontaktieren Sie mich unter support@charcoaldesign.co.uk und ich werde versuchen, das Problem zu beheben ### 1/5 — Not a text editor *2025-10-15, version 1.2.3* I needed to edit some Markdown and Textile files, which are plain text, and it doesn’t work. I’m more sure what it’s doing, but it’s more a text editor. ### 2/5 — Very Bad Failure Mode on Network *2026-03-13* I really do love this app, but it's unfortunately difficult to recommend at the moment because it fails very badly on network drives. It autosaves rather than giving you control over writes, so you can get non-atomic updates and data corruption. If your backend is locally cached this works great, but alas, I often use it to update network files and it bombs giving me the choice to leave the file in a corrupt state or continue to edit which will then soon result in the error reappearing. It's a lovely UI but this really needs more sensible behaviour; only update when the close button is tapped and provide a button to revert to the previous state of the file when opened. Only save locally to the app's state in the interim. i pray this will be remedied soon so I can go back to giving this the 5 stars it deserves! **Developer response:** Thanks for the review, and sorry for this frustration. Please get in touch at support@charcoaldesign.co.uk to discuss the networking issue ### 2/5 — .txt extension *2025-11-10, version 1.2.3* Required to open a file? Kind of lame. ### 2/5 — Not able to save edits *2025-11-04, version 1.2.3* Nice, simple ASCII text editor, but it throws an error when trying to save files to a network drive. ### 3/5 — One flaw *2026-07-22, version 1.2.4* 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. ### 3/5 — You will lose your work *2026-07-13* 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. **Developer response:** 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 ### 3/5 — Pros & Cons *2026-06-27* 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 **Developer response:** 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. ### 3/5 — Great but…. *2026-02-06, version 1.2.3* Great little app, but I can’t add it as a widget to my today screen :( ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Simple Text Editor *2026-08-22* I wanted a simple text editor so I could edit text files in the Files app. It works as intended and meets my needs. ### 5/5 — a must for ios *2026-08-20* 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 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩 **Developer response:** Thanks for the great review! I've added support for all file types in version 1.2.5 ### 5/5 — Perfect for all text editing *2026-07-14* 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. **Developer response:** Thanks so much for the great review! ### 5/5 — a must for ios *2026-07-10, version 1.2.4* 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 ### 5/5 — Excellent text editor *2026-06-13* 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. **Developer response:** Thanks for the great review! ### 5/5 — Danke für diese App *2026-05-31* 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 😇 **Developer response:** Danke für die tolle Bewertung - ich freue mich, dass dir Subtext gefällt! ### 5/5 — Super! *2026-05-27* 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✌️ **Developer response:** Danke für die tolle Bewertung! ### 5/5 — No bloat *2026-05-22, version 1.2.3* So simple ### 5/5 — Simple, brilliant *2026-03-27* I’ve tried a lot of text editors and this is the best – does more than many much more bloated apps **Developer response:** Thanks! Glad you like Subtext ### 5/5 — Best simple vim-like app *2026-03-03* OMG, how long I was looking for such a simple and functional tool! Brilliant! Many thanks for developers! **Developer response:** Thanks for the great review! --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-31.*