Ulysses – The Ultimate Writing App App Reviews

Keeps getting better and better. As a graduate student the app has been a workflow miracle for writing.

Ulysses has been incredibly useful and intuitive. Getting the hang of the program takes a little time, but after a day of clicking around I was good to go. I purchased Ulysses primarily to organize my thesis, but it’s so helpful that I now use it for every paper I write.

I hate writing apps and writing app culture. I despise “minimalism”. And yet Ulysses has totally charmed me over. Well, almost. The icon is terrible and at this point I’m convinced they’re simply trolling everyone with taste by their devotion to this icon. Why do I think it’s a troll? Because everything else in this app is so exquisitely crafted and gosh-darn thoughtful—my personal favorite is how trackpad gestures expand and collapse views and navigation elements. I don’t regret spending the money at all. JUST PLEASE CHANGE THE ICON.

I’m a freelance writer who works on a lot of different projects for clients, and I’ve been looking for an app like Ulysses. I don’t like organizing files in simple folders anymore, I’ve wanted stuff like Favorites to have quick access to current projects and I love the ability to set custom icons for groups to find them easier. The Markdown support is great too. There’s lots of wonderful little polish all over the place. Plus, I’m writing on my iPad much more often lately, so I immediately bought the new Ulysses for iPad too. Ulysses is just fantastic all around. Get it. Seriously.

This is an update to my prior reviews (see below). Overall I’m happy with the program, though it took a while for the developers to restore some of the features they dropped from Ulysses III and quash a bunch of annoying bugs. It’s a great writing environment. They key to remember is it’s a markdown-only environment - it’s not for heavy-duty design. You’ll have to pull your text into another app for that. If you don’t get carried away with tables or attachments, and just focus on writing, Ulysses is amazing. The database structure is key for me, because I have quick access to all of my texts, rather than sorting through dozens/hundreds or separate files. Keep up the good work guys, but PLEASE KILL THE BUTTERFLY! Thank. ------------ I’m quite happy with v2.2. Full screen works quite nicely and they’ve quashed a few other bugs. I like that they’ve fixed the toolbar issues in full-screen mode - you can now choose whether you want to display the toolbar all the time, or have it pop up only when you need it. Generally the program stays out of my way, which is what I like. I’m still not completely thrilled with the export modes. They’re a bit funky, especially when exporting to Word, which is what I generally need to do given my workflow. But I can deal with the minor formatting issues that arise on the Word side. I suspect part of the issue is Microsoft’s unwillingness to deal with Markup, rather than Ulysses. Overall, Ulysses is a very nice, simple place to focus on generating words. Plain text is great. But guys, I’m begging, please, PLEASE, kill the butterfly. I know the artist is highly invested. But it’s terrible. I’m not the only one who dislikes it. Let it go. -------------- The updates through 2.1.1 have finally brought some much needed stability to Ulysses. It’s not crashing anymore and they seem to have ironed out a bunch of other bugs. I’m pretty happy with the current iteration. Some folks seem to gripe about the app’s use of a text file database, as opposed to regular text files. It’s a silly, specious argument. I think you’ll find the complainers are generally hardcore tech guys. The truth is it takes only a few clicks to export your text in any format you choose. If you want to export markdown, that option takes three clicks. I export to Word using a preset style sheet - again, three clicks. The Soulmen changed the process from earlier versions of Ulysses and it took me a while to get used to things, but it works fine. And the database is now backed up as ov version 2.1, so I’m happy with that. I back up my computer in multiple ways regardless, so I was never worried. I care most about the writing enviromnent and here Ulysses wins hands-down. My only real gripe is the butterfly icon… I get that it’s a metaphor and I’m sure the designer put his or her heart into it, but seriously guys…? -------------- The 2.0.2 version is incredibly crash-prone. My version is crashing and restarting at least once daily, often more. This started with the latest update. -------------- Hallelujah - Paged Mode is restored with the 4.24.15 update. I’m getting used to this version of the app, although Quick Export menu still requires too many clicks to accomplish exports to common programs, compared to Ulysses III. As I said previously, this is still by far the best markdown app for managing long documents. The file management database is a solid feature. Don’t be scared of it. It works, and it’s safely backed up. I access it on my Mac and iPad with no issues, and you can also dive into it and find your texts if you need them. And everything is exportable. I’m bumping my rating up to 4 stars. Now if they can just do someting about that butterfly icon... Here’s my prior review: --------------- I think the update is just OK. Lots of people are gushing over it and I don’t see it. The look and feel of the updates if inferior to Ulysses III. I miss Paged Mode, and I’m not sure why the developers would drop this feature. The new version has far too much white space, which to my eye has a significant negative impact on usability. The Quick Export menu requires more clicks to get my text out of Ulysses. I love writing within the program, but then my copy needs to get somewhere - unfortunately that’s usually Word. It’s more of a chore to make that happen in my preferred template now than it was before. Still the best markdown app out there for pure writing, mainly because of the file management database. But the update doesn’t seem to add much. The icon? I don’t want to be mean. It’s not good. But there’s a trick to bringing back the old icon.

Thanks, Soulmen for building the ultimate writing app. I just bought Ulysses for iPad and Mac, and I love that there is feature parity between the two. I can finish writing my first long-form writing piece in style now, thanks to Ulysses. The export options have you covered from epub to PDF and beyond, and the multitude of ways that the app allows one to set the tone for their writing, stylistically creates the right environment for me to be creative in, no matter where I write. Just beautiful. I patiently await the iPhone version to be able to write while on the train! Viva La Ulysses!

I must say, Ulysses’s dark fullscreen mode looks fantastic on a Space Grey 12” MacBook. The colors compliment the body of the laptop perfectly and when combined with the wonderful new keyboard (I know, not everyone agrees) Ulysses makes my MacBook the best writing instrument I’ve ever used. Using Ulysses’s markdown features may seem a little odd at first coming from a rich text editor, but I like that my work is essentially all plaintext. It makes it feel more portable, and there are plenty of export options to get it into different formats and layouts. WYSIWYG may be great for creating a phamphlet or even writing a school report, but the seperation of the written words from the final format feels great for more serious, lengthy writing. I also purchased the iPad app so I can do some writing when I’ve only brought my tablet with me, which I do from time to time. The iOS version is just as fully featured as the Mac version which is very impressive.

Powerful, simple, and solid, Ulysses offers everything I need to keep all of my writing organized. I’ve used it for poetry, short stories, and am now halfway through my first novel and couldn’t be happier. The distraction free environment is top notch, and the variety of export styles and options are impressive as well. Keep up the good work!

I decided to give the app a try for the first time when they offered a 60 day free trial for NaNoWriMo participents. I LOVE IT! Dark screen mode is win. Preview mode is win. It is destration free which is awesome. worth every dollar. And soon to come to iPhone!

I do not have a background in writing but needed to find an app that helped me with layouts, editing and examples of how to start. I find this to be nothgin mroe than a fancier word document and should have not wasted the $45 and still used my old format of Microsoft Word. There were no tutorials or videos to give more hands on coaching. There are no examples of what others are doign to help give me a starting place. If I missed all of these options then I will repost and chmage my review, but as of now it’s a complete waste.

I originally purchased Ulysses a year or more ago, tried it a little, somehow wasn’t too impressed at the time. Looking back I realize it was because the app is so subtle, most of it’s power is hidden. I’ve used Scrivener quite a bit the last few years, mostly for personal writing, Journaling, etc. Then a month or so ago I decided to give Ulysses another try and this time I GOT IT! It has a number of the really nice features of Scrivener but packaged in a far more streamlined, easier to use way. I love their implementation of editing Markdown. I love how easy it is to output in numerous formats ePub, PDF, Word, etc. Thanks Soulmen!

This program is elegant and simple, but amazingly powerful. It is actually a pleasure to write things with it - most anything. I purchased Ulysses only after reading so many descriptions and reviews of writing programs that my eyes were crossing. I think I finally decided on Ulysses because it sounded more approachable and like it was a program that didn’t get in the way of, well, writing. It doesn’t. If you are thinking of getting it, do it!

To begin with, I am an avid (perhaps devout) Scrivener user. Ulysses won’t displace that app as my novel-writing and screenwriting go-to. With that said, Ulysses is perfect for everything else writing-related. Advertising copy? Check. Press releases? Check. Blog posts? Check. It should also be said that I’m a newb when it comes to Markdown. I’m still learning and still exploring all that the Markdown paradigm has to offer, and I can already see where Ulysses expands the power of that paradigm in unexpected and wonderful ways. And the powerful hookup between Ulysses and Medium? Forget it — I may never remember to post to Wordpress again. From somebody just getting the lay of the Markdown land, consider this high praise: Ulysses is bar-none the best Markdown app going.

In college I tried a number of writing applications including Pages and Scriviner, as well as plain text editors such as Byword. When I heard that this new version of Ulysses was coming out, I followed closely on its progress, and was not dissapointed when I bought it immediately upon release. Writers accustomed to using rich text editors will have to get used to writing in plain text instead—but the markup is simple (the default is similar to Markdown), and it doesn’t take long to realize how powerful this can be. For example, I have the markup customized so that % at the beginning of a paragraph makes it a comment. This makes it trivial to cut out paragraphs, or interleave notes with your writing (when exporting your writing, you can choose to have comments removed automatically). With pipe characters, I can |surround| a word to highlight it; often I use this to indicate words or phrases I’d like to revisit. Later, I can search for all highlights (you can search for specific markup types as well as words) and quickly go through and revise. If you like fonts and colors, you’ll love the ability to switch between themes, as well as create your own and customize them. This is another advantage of writing in plain text: fonts and colors are not encoded into the text itself, so you can instantly change the entire interface to dark for nighttime writing, or switch to a different font. The organizational features are powerful as well. The concept of “sheets” encourages breaking up your writing into manageable sections, which can easily be worked on individually, rearranged, filtered, and exported to a single document. Sheets are organized into “groups”, but can be tagged, so you can filter to get a list of all sheets for a common theme accross groups, and work on the fitered list as if it were it’s own group (filters that you use often can also be saved). The new split-screen feature in OS X pairs nicely with Ulysses, and allows you to work full-screen with notes on one side and your draft on the other. Even with all these features, the application still feels much simpler than a word processing application or Scrivener. The developers have been very responsive to feedback, and have improved the application tremendously since its initial release. I’ve seen a number of my feature requests/suggestions show up in updates (this is fun, whether or not my input had any effect). There’s a free trial at ulyssesapp.com/mac - try it out for a real project. It deserves your attention!

There are many things I like about the application. It’s stable. It synchronizes documents across all of my devices. I appreciate the support for groups, filters, and statistics. Unfortunately, Ulysses doesn’t support tables within markdown. Table support is quite important to me. Perhaps I’ll raise my review rating should support be provided in a future release.

As the chief marketing wrtiting for two million dollar websites, pounding out 5,000+ words a week, Ulysses is a god send. Especially the folder systems and synch between mac and macbook air. Also love how I can create email marketing funnels with 30+ emails, and bounce between each one in an eye blink. I especailly LOVE using ULY in split screen mode on my desktop when I reviwing notes, referrence material, or research. The simple design, and marks down keeps me wirting instead of fussing with formatting. When I had my ipad I used Daeldius and really loved the elegance and smart synching there too. No matater what Mac device you sue, If you write, and write a lot... there is no more elegant workshorse to ride your writing project on across the finish line.

It’s really the writer that counts. I was greatly disappointed by this app for $44. You’re better off with Word and Microsoft Office 365. It might be that I don’t know it’s full potential, but it also looked like Word was a whole lot more substantial for the money. I got it to reward myself for some really superb work I did today and I was mad when I opened this up.

This is one of the best wirting applications I have ever used fort the Mac. I use it all the time for school work and person wirting. There are only a could things that I wish would be added/changed: 1. Syntax highlighting like in the iA Writer application. 2. An easier way to edit and create applicaiton themes and export styles. Right now it is a teduous and involved process to cusomize things exactly to your liking. Otherwise I have no compalints about Ulysses!

This is my favorite writing app for its aesthetics and convinence, but I wish they would fix the search feature so you could “find whole words” instead of fragments. The other problem is when I sort groups because when I put a group under another, it takes it in. It would be better if it you’d hold a group under another to sort it in. Other than that it’s a great app

This app is great! Simple markdown writing up front, with plenty of power for editing and output. Keeps all my writing in iCloud, synced across devices, with keywords, notes, attachments -- everything I need for writing work. When it comes time to output that writing, Word, PDF or even ePub export is right in the app. On the Mac -- or now even on the phone! The 2.5 update brings fantastic iPhone & iPad Pro support.