SwiftUI macOS app tutorial: Build a Notes App (Beginner Tutorial – 2025)

Learn how to build your first macOS desktop app using SwiftUI! In this beginner-friendly tutorial, we’ll walk through every step of creating a functional Notes app for Mac, using NavigationSplitView, state management, toolbars, and more.

This is the perfect starting point if you’re an iOS developer exploring the desktop world — or a total Swift beginner looking to build your first real macOS app.

🧠 What You’ll Learn:
✅ How to create a macOS SwiftUI project in Xcode
✅ Build a functional sidebar + detail layout
✅ Use @State, @Binding, and list selection
✅ Add native macOS features like toolbars
✅ Understand how navigation and editing work differently from iOS

🎯 By the end, you’ll have a working Notes app that feels right at home on the Mac — and a solid foundation for future macOS development!

Clone or download the full demo project here:
📁 GitHub Repo: https://github.com/NDCSwift/MacOSNotesApp

🔥 Download My Project Files & More! 🔥
👉 Get the source code for this project & other Swift resources here:
🔗 https://ndcswift.github.io/Swift-Projects/

⏱️Timestamps
00:00 – Intro
00:25 – Example of what we're building
00:46 – Creating a new MacOS project on Xcode
01:24 – SwiftUI Preview with MacOS
01:55 – Notes Struct
02:49 – Adding our Notes to ContentView
04:44 – Designing our User Interface with NavigationSplitView
05:48 – List & Looping through our notes
09:27 – Making our Notes hashable
09:55 – Using the Preview to test our app
10:10 – Adding toolbar
12:04 – Testing on your Mac
12:30 – Adding Binding to our Notes
14:45 – Creating a NoteDetailView for our Notes
15:25 – Fixing Preview with Bindings
16:22 – Getting User input for Notes
19:40 – Updating our Detail
21:16 – Using tag to "click to navigate"
21:55 – Code Review
24:19 – Wrap Up