A notes app for writers, built like a quiet room
Drafts want privacy, focus, and forgiveness. Locus gives all three on your Mac — focus mode, serif rooms to write in, version history for fearless cutting — with no account and no cloud reading along.
Most notes apps are built for meetings. Writers need something else: a place where a half-formed paragraph is safe — from distraction, from loss, and from being training data. Locus is a private, local notebook with a writer’s furniture: the kind of type you’d choose on purpose, numbers that stay out of the prose, and a past you can always return to.
The writer’s toolkit
01Focus mode
⌘. clears everything but the page — no sidebar, no chrome, just the draft and a caret. Press it again and the room comes back.
02Rooms with the right light
Writer themes ship with their own typefaces and moods: Manuscript’s serif on warm paper, The Study’s leather-and-lamplight dark, Linen and Blush for soft daylight drafting. The canvas matches the work.
03Numbers that whisper
Word count and estimated reading time sit in the footer — visible when you glance, silent when you don’t. Select a passage and it counts just the selection.
04Drafts with a past
Every page keeps up to 60 version snapshots, so cutting a paragraph is never a decision about whether you might want it back. The whole workspace also gets a daily backup.
05Structure when you want it
Outline with headings and toggles, keep research in sub-pages, link scenes and sources with @-mentions — backlinks remember every connection with its surrounding sentence.
06An exit to anywhere
Export a chapter as Markdown for your editor, HTML for the web, or PDF for a reader. Your words never get stuck in the tool that held them.
The privacy isn’t a feature toggle — it’s the architecture. No account or cloud sync, a workspace you can open in any text editor, and a signed updater that never accesses your writing: the full argument is on the private notes app page. And if your drafting currently lives in a cloud workspace, the Notion comparison covers what moving home looks like.
Questions writers ask
Is Locus a full manuscript tool like Scrivener or Ulysses?
No — and it doesn’t pretend to be. There are no compile targets, submission formats, or writing goals. Locus is the notebook layer: drafts, notes, research, and structure, in a calm room. Many writers pair a notebook like this with a dedicated manuscript tool for final assembly.
Can I write in Markdown?
Yes — type **bold**, ## headings, - lists, or > quotes and they become real formatting as you finish the keystroke. The syntax never sits on screen unless you export it back out as Markdown.
Does it work offline on a writing retreat?
Offline is the only mode — Locus has no sync service and no account. Your drafts live in a readable file on your Mac, protected by whatever backup you already trust.
What about distraction-free typewriter scrolling?
It’s in. Turn on typewriter scrolling in Settings → Editor and Focus Mode keeps the line you’re writing pinned just above center, the way a carriage would. Pair it with paragraph dimming — everything but the paragraph under your caret fades back — or switch either off independently.
What writing app do most authors use?
For manuscripts: Scrivener, Ulysses, and plain Word/Google Docs dominate, honestly — long-form drafting tools with compile and manuscript formatting. A notes app plays a different position: the research, fragments, character sketches, and daily thinking that feed the manuscript. Locus competes for that second job, not the first.
Can you use a notes app to write a book?
People have, and the early chapters usually go fine — the strain shows at manuscript scale: compiling chapters, formatting for submission, tracking revisions across a hundred thousand words. A fair division of labor: draft and think in a notes app you trust (every page in Locus exports to Markdown when you’re ready), assemble and format in a manuscript tool.