Hands off my trademark! Notepad++ dev threatens legal action against macOS port

Notepad++ remains a Windows-only app, at least under that name. The beloved developer-focused, open-source text editor recently was ported to macOS by a third party. However, developer Don Ho wants to be perfectly clear that, no matter how convincing the new project might look, it's not official.  It was mid April when the …

[NoneSuch]

I hope my version of Windows that will run on MacOS does not hit this road block.

[IGotOut]

What????

[Chris Warrick]

100% slop

If you look at GitHub, that Mac project is 100% Claude slop of the I'm-too-lazy-to-make-commits-myself kind, so you know it must be good. I don’t know why the original maintainer has any reservations about it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this looks weird.

At first I thought maybe the original author was over-reacting but that npp website for mac fork looks way too slick. It either looks like a land grab or they were setting themselves up for some kind of monetisation.

[David 132]

I must admit that when I read the initial coverage last week, I incorrectly (but naturally) assumed that this was an official port from the Notepad++ creator.

[45RPM]

I use Notepad++ on Windows - on Windows it’s the best in the business. But…

Even if this port was an official port and not a low quality AI translation…

The Mac has BBEdit. And, at least for my use case and tastes, BBEdit is the best text editor on any platform. It’s just a shame that it’s only available on Macintosh.

[hedgie]

BBEdit is amazing, and I've been using it for over 25 years now. Mac users are already kinda spoilt for choice for text editors in any event. Aside from BBEdit, there are Aquamacs and all the various *nix editors in the terminal. Even if it were a real port, the target users would most likely be recent converts from Windows who used Notepad++ for everything.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are people who need to work across different systems, and if they can work with the same tools is far easier than having to switch and remember how each of them exactly works.

[45RPM]

Yes. Me. And I use the best tool for each platform. I celebrate the strengths of each OS - and remembering what each can do doesn’t present a problem.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I've Bee Using BBEdit for Over 30 Years

It's an amazing app. I did try a couple of others, over the years, like TextMate and Sublime, but have always ended up back with BBEdit.

[Taliesinawen]

The engine behind Notepad++

ClippyAI: The "engine" behind Notepad++ is a cross-platform source code editing component called Scintilla. Primarily maintained by Neil Hodgson.

--

posted on 04/05/2026: 19:11 BST

[LionelB]

Re: The engine behind Notepad++

Also, as it happens, the editing component behind Geany, probably the best code editor on Linux.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: The engine behind Notepad++

You could simply have gone to the project's official website. The second para on the home page begins "Based on the powerful editing component Scintilla..."

[rwreenwood]

Re: The engine behind Notepad++

Thanks for the shout out for Scintilla. Notepad++ would not be what it is without Scintilla. And same for Granny.

[Doctor Evil]

Don Ho wrote Notepad++ too?

"Notepad++ remains a Windows-only app, at least under that name. The beloved developer-focused, open-source text editor recently was ported to macOS by a third party. However, developer Don Ho wants to be perfectly clear that, no matter how convincing the new project might look, it's not official."

Don Ho? Mr. "Tiny Bubbles"? Man, I haven't heard anything from him in years! I thought he was dead!

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Don Ho wrote Notepad++ too?

Not to be mistaken for Chin Ho.

Pity, as, otherwise a word with the boss would have had Five-O investigate this infringement.

"Book'em Danno"

[xyz123]

So basically a notepad++ ripoff FILLED with malware and malicious payload capability, trading on someone elses name.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Notpad++

Just ditch the "e," rebranding isn't a big deal. I think Notepadqq is a successful Linux Notepad++ workalike (cannot say from personal experience as am an old Vi hand and vi/vim being available on everything.)

Actually all things considered, Bloknot++ might be quite appropriate.

[Peter Gathercole]

Re: Notpad++

I used to use Gosling EMACS as my preferred documentation editor at one place I worked, but always kept my hand in with vi because as you say it's on pretty much all UNIX-like OS's

I tried to switch to GNU EMACS, but found the differences too large for most of my mocklisp assists that I wrote (one of which was my own DEC EDT emulation, a throwback to an even earlier part of my working life), plus I was writing less documentation, so just went back to vi.

But I always kept my hand in with ed as well, as that is the ultimate fallback. If that's not around, you're really stuffed.

[brett_x]

Now known as NextPad++

The domain is now forwarding to Nextpad.org with rebranding to match. This makes sense, but he wouldn't have gotten any of the publicity of his port without first calling it Notepad++.

There's also a claim that it's called that as a nod to Apple history:

"Starting with upcoming version 1.0.6, Notepad++ for Mac will be renamed to Nextpad++. The new name is a small nod to Mac history. Before returning to Apple in 1996, Steve Jobs founded NeXT, which became the foundation of what is now macOS."