A calm, single-file writing studio for people who write long things.
MUSE (Manuscript Unified Studio Environment) is a desktop writing app for novelists,
screenwriters, and researchers. It combines Scrivener-style project organization with a
modern editor and a complete review workflow — and every project lives in a single .muse
file on your own computer. No cloud account, nothing uploaded.
Available for macOS, Windows, and Linux. See the Install & first launch guide for step-by-step setup on each platform.
- Organize a whole book. A binder tree holds chapters, scenes, characters, places, and research side by side. Tag documents with labels, statuses, and your own custom metadata.
- Plan visually. The Scene Board gives you seven views of your project — Scenes, Freeform, Organize, Canvas, Structure, Timeline, and Connections.
- Draft comfortably. A rich editor built for very large documents, with focus mode, typewriter scrolling, wikilinks between documents, and live spelling and grammar suggestions.
- Revise thoroughly. Track changes with suggesting mode, group edits into named revision passes, leave anchored comments, and take snapshots you can return to.
- Compile and export. Assemble selected documents into a finished manuscript and export to DOCX (with tracked changes), PDF, or Markdown.
- One file, on your computer. Each project is a single
.musefile (a SQLite database). Nothing syncs, nothing uploads — which avoids the corruption that plagues file-and-folder writing setups. - Built for big manuscripts. The editor stays responsive on 80,000-word documents and beyond.
- Trust first. Automatic backups, version snapshots, and crash-recovery drafts mean you never have to worry about losing your work.
MUSE is in private alpha. It's feature-rich but still early — expect occasional bugs and interface details that will change. During alpha, please don't make MUSE the only home for irreplaceable work; always keep copies of anything you can't afford to lose.
Learn more and read the full user manual at atomic-rose.github.io/muse-site.