Notepads

Notepads is a free, open-source text editor for Windows 10 and later, built as a replacement for the default Notepad with a modern look and a tab-based layout. The author describes it as a personal project created because existing options either felt too heavy for quick tasks or did not visually fit the Windows 10 design style.

It includes a tab system for working with multiple files at once, a live Markdown preview that shows rendered output alongside the raw text, and a side-by-side diff viewer that lets you see what changed between two versions of a file. Handwriting input is also supported. You can launch it from the command line by typing its name, and you can pin it to open specific files directly. A session snapshot feature preserves open tabs if you close the app.

The app is available for free on the Microsoft Store and via the Windows Package Manager (winget). Because it is built on the UWP platform, there are a few restrictions: it cannot save files to protected system folders, cannot be associated with file types like .cmd or .bat, and has a 1 MB file size limit for now.

The README is clear on privacy: the app does not collect any personal information, does not record what you type, and does not read your file names or paths. It does use an analytics service called AppCenter to collect basic usage counts and error data to help the developer fix bugs, and the README links to a GitHub thread explaining this in detail.

The app is a personal project from a Microsoft employee, not a Microsoft product. It is localized into over a dozen languages including French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, Russian, Italian, and Korean. Contributions to code and localization are welcome through the standard pull request process.