I tried every LaTeX editor on macOS. Here's what I actually use now.

The Setup Problem Last fall I got an M2 MacBook Air and needed a LaTeX setup for my thesis. Should be simple, right? Install MacTeX, pick an editor, start writing. MacTeX took 20 minutes to download. Picking an editor took three days. TeXShop: Free, stable, native. But the UI looks like it was designed when Tiger was the latest macOS. For a 5-page homework assignment, sure. For a 150-page thesis with 40+ figures? I need file management. VS Code + LaTeX Workshop: Powerful if you get it configured. I spent about 2 hours editing settings.json to get latexmk recipes, SyncTeX paths, and formatters working. It compiles, it works — but it always feels like I'm using a general-purpose tool that happens to support LaTeX, not something built for it. Overleaf: Loved it initially. Real-time preview, great templates, zero setup. Then my thesis hit 100 pages and I started getting compile timeouts on the free tier. At 11pm the night before a draft deadline. That was the end of Overleaf for me. Texifi