Grammarly Desktop For Mac

Grammarly has become hugely popular over the years, providing users with a great way to both check their grammar and improve their writing. The service also offered a desktop app, which was nothing but a wrapper for the web version, but that has now changed.

The new Grammarly Desktop is a native macOS app that provides spell checking and suggestions on your desktop, in any app or website that supports text input. However, the text editor is now only accessible via a browser, so not everything has been improved across the board.

Grammarly now works with any desktop text editor or browser. If you have a text field anywhere, the app should detect it and check your grammar automatically. You will see a small widget next to the field, which you can click to cycle through suggestions.

However, you can only go through them one by one, as the app cannot display all suggestions on the screen at once. For that, you will need to paste your text into the web-based editor. You also have the option to disable the service in certain applications, or for a certain amount of time.

While the old Grammarly was a very basic web app wrapper, it had the advantage of including a word processor that worked outside of a browser. Sadly, that is no longer the case. If you try to create a new document from the desktop app, it will be opened in your default browser.

If you already have a word processor, that shouldn't be an issue. The app will still provide suggestions in whatever text editor you're using, but this will be a downside for users who preferred the old Grammarly desktop editor. Your style preferences can also be changed from the web app only.

You may be familiar with Grammarly's browser extensions, which used to be the only way to check your grammar in browser text fields. The desktop app now works with browsers as well, though you can still use the extensions if you prefer.

I personally find the extensions to be preferable, as they have more configuration options and a better layout. Some text fields were not recognized by the desktop app but were not a problem for the extension.

Overall, Grammarly Desktop is a welcome upgrade from the old macOS app, but it still needs work. The layout of the grammar checking widget could be improved, along with the app's text field detection. A desktop editor would be nice but is unlikely to be added.