Most repeated positive
13authors
A complete feature set
“cleanshotx - scrolling screenshots is much more robust.”Evidence: r/macapps · Shottr vs CleanShot X in 2026. Which one are you actually sticking with?
Purchase research
Essayist for Mac
Create properly formatted academic papers with built-in APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard styles, citation management, automatic bibliographies, and Apple device sync.
Official release history
Recent updates
Release notes parsed from trusted records and kept on this page. History provides context; a future Watch alert starts from a fresh baseline.
No trusted release history yet.
We have not observed a structured App Store, Sparkle, GitHub, or package release for Essayist. Future official changes can still establish a Watch baseline.
Be the first to request it
Should you buy Essayist? Let us investigate.
Request the same source-linked purchase brief shown in the completed example below. Your email starts the request and receives the result.
- CollectOfficial terms + public discussions
- VerifyRepeated signals + source links
- PublishPurchase brief + one email
Want it sooner? Independent demand changes queue priority.
Completed example · CleanShot X data
See what your finished brief will look like
Everything below belongs to CleanShot X. It is a real, completed example—not research about Essayist.
CleanShot X
Example data
Completed research example- 98
- analyzed comments
- 8
- reviewed threads
- 425
- comments stored
- 90
- independent authors
Most repeated concern
16authors
Per-device pricing
“I don't think it makes sense to spend the money for Cleanshot when other apps do most of what it does for a lot less or free.”Evidence: r/macapps · Shottr vs CleanShot X in 2026. Which one are you actually sticking with?
Product context
What Essayist says it does
Official or maker-supplied product information. It is kept separate from buyer evidence and independent purchase verification.
Write the paper while Essayist handles the format
Essayist combines academic writing and reference management in one app for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Start by choosing APA, MLA, Chicago/Turabian, or Harvard, then write in a document whose page setup, citations, footnotes, references, and bibliography are formatted by the app. Citations can be inserted from the project’s reference list without interrupting the draft.
Build a reusable research library
The built-in Reference Manager stores and organizes sources, then generates the bibliography from what you cite. Officially documented input routes and document tools include:
- Add a result from Google Scholar through the app’s integration.
- Search for books and journal articles or paste a URL.
- Import an existing BibTeX collection.
- Track journals, books, websites, legal cases, datasets, interviews, and other reference types.
- Export the finished work to PDF or Word.
Support more than continuous prose
Essayist can place figures, tables, and equations while managing titles, captions, and numbering. It also supports structural sections such as an abstract, table of contents, chapters, and appendices. That makes the workspace relevant to essays, dissertations, reports, and other formal papers where consistency across many moving parts matters. Apple named Essayist Mac App of the Year 2025, a distinction linked from the official product page.
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