Use TextEdit’s Find function This workaround is not exact, and again you can only use it to do a word count of the entire document, but at least it’s something you do in TextEdit itself.

How to recover lost TextEdit files on Mac: Using Time Machine backup One last way of trying to recover files is through Apple’s Time Machine backup app.

If you keep on changing TextEdit from rich text mode to plain text each time you open the app, here's how you can change the default settings in the often-used text-editing tool.

More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users. For those with modest text-editing needs, Apple's TextEdit is a great choice. Did you know that it's got an autocomplete option ...