Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut Shift-Command-T. To do so, make sure the document you wish to convert is open and selected, then go to Format > Make Plain Text in the TextEdit menu bar. TextEdit opens a new document in rich text mode by default, but you can easily convert a document to plain text at any time. Convert Rich Text to Plain Text in TextEdit This can be useful for removing the formatting from copied text, working with code, or reducing the complexity and file sizes of documents that don’t need the benefits of rich text formatting.
But sometimes it’s best to use TextEdit Plain Text Mode, which eliminates all formatting and, you guessed it, produces only plain text.
