How to Create a New Text File in a Finder Folder

Right-click inside a Finder folder and you will find New Folder — but no New Text File. Windows switchers notice immediately; long-time Mac users just quietly work around it. Here are the three real workarounds, from zero-setup to a one-time fix that adds the missing command to your right-click menu.

Option 1: TextEdit, saved into place

1. Open TextEdit (Spotlight: Cmd+Space, type "textedit").
2. Press Cmd+N for a new document, then Shift+Cmd+T (Format → Make Plain Text) so you get a real .txt instead of rich text.
3. Press Cmd+S, name the file, and choose the folder. Tip: if a Finder window is already showing the destination, drag its title-bar proxy icon into the Save dialog to jump straight there, or press Shift+Cmd+G and paste a path.

If you always want plain text, flip the default: TextEdit → Settings → New Document → select Plain text. To undo, select Rich text again. With that set, every new TextEdit document is a plain .txt from the start.

Option 2: Terminal's touch command

The touch command creates an empty file at whatever path you give it:

# create an empty text file on the Desktop
touch ~/Desktop/notes.txt

# undo: remove it (only if you no longer want it)
rm ~/Desktop/notes.txt

The trick is getting a prompt that is already in the right folder — that is exactly what the New Terminal at Folder service does. Enable it once (System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Services → Files and Folders), then right-click a folder, open Terminal there, and touch notes.txt. If the file exists already, touch harmlessly updates its modification date rather than overwriting anything.

Option 3: add "New Text File" to the right-click menu

Ten minutes in Automator gives Finder the command it should have shipped with:

1. Open Automator (it is in Applications), choose File → New, and pick Quick Action.
2. At the top of the workflow, set Workflow receives current to folders in Finder.
3. From the actions library, drag in Run Shell Script. Set Pass input: to as arguments.
4. Replace the script body with: touch "$1/untitled.txt"
5. Save (Cmd+S) and name it New Text File.

Now right-click any folder and choose Quick Actions → New Text File: an empty untitled.txt appears inside, ready to rename. The same workflow can be built in the Shortcuts app (add a "Run Shell Script" action and enable the shortcut as a Quick Action in its details pane), which also lets you pin it to the menu bar. To remove the action later, delete it from ~/Library/Services or from within Shortcuts.

Which one to use

One file a month: TextEdit is fine. Comfortable in the shell: touch plus New Terminal at Folder covers it. Making notes files constantly: build the Quick Action once and enjoy the right-click command forever — it is the only option that works entirely inside Finder, with no app switch at all.

Related: make TextEdit behave

TextEdit's rich-text default, smart quotes, and auto-capitalization all fight anyone writing plain text or code. Our guide to making TextEdit default to plain text tames all three.