Bean
Bean is a lightweight macOS word processor for writing and editing simple documents with a clean interface and fast everyday text tools.
What is Bean?
Bean is a native macOS word processor designed for people who want a simple, focused place to write and format everyday documents. It helps with letters, notes, drafts, short reports, and other general writing tasks without the complexity of a full office suite. Bean includes core editing and layout tools such as live word count, headers and footers, split-window editing, full-screen writing, and document templates. It also supports common rich-text workflows, in-line images, and several document formats that fit personal and small-office use. Bean is published by James Hoover and is best suited to users who prefer a lean desktop writing app for straightforward documents on Mac.
Key features
- Write and format everyday documents in a lightweight editor
- View a live word count while you work
- Create template documents with boilerplate text
- Edit in split windows for side-by-side work in one document
- Use full-screen or focus-style editing for distraction-reduced writing
- Add free-form headers and footers to pages
- Search with regular expressions in the find panel
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Safety overview
Status: Mostly safe
Bean is a legitimate desktop writing app for macOS, and its file access is consistent with creating and editing documents. Because it is distributed outside the Mac App Store, macOS may show an app-origin warning the first time you open it. Download it from the official Bean website, and review any document access prompts in the normal way before granting access to personal folders.
Recommendation: Keep Bean if you use it for writing or need access to documents created with it. If you no longer use it, removing the app is usually low impact aside from losing its app-specific settings and any convenience for opening Bean documents directly.
Common paths
/Applications/Bean.app
Preference paths
~/Library/Preferences/com.bean-osx.Bean.plist
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