Writing software that
gets you to first draft, fast.

Go from notes→outline→draft in the same simple view. Stop being overwhelmed, and start playing with your words.

Get Started for Free

"My default place to write: dump ideas, move to structure, flesh em out, rearrange, edit, export."

Osbert Lancaster
Sustainability events facilitator,
Director of Natural Change.

"Very cool web tool for structuring prose. Got me through the third act of the last novel..."

Michael Marshall Smith
New York Times best-selling author

"It took away so much of my writing anxiety that it got me through from undergrad to a Ph.D. now."

Kristi K.
Ph.D. Candidate in Film Studies

Focused by Default

Whether it's a novel, a thesis, or a legal brief,
the only way to make progress is to:

  • Break your work into small chunks.
  • Focus on one at a time.

With Gingko Writer this is automatic, because you are always writing in small chunks called "cards".

This allows you to tackle larger projects without getting overwhelmed.

Write the Big Picture and The Details

You may be writing the overall premise, and suddenly get an idea for a specific scene.

Jumping around like this is a problem with traditional writing tools. But with Gingko Writer, the big picture, the details, and everything in between, are always in easy reach.

This simple change makes a profound impact. Because now you can simply write exactly what you are thinking, as you're thinking it.

Organize As You Write

There's no hard line between "writing" and "organizing" in Gingko Writer.

And why should there be?

When organizing, it's important to see what you're organizing.
And when writing, you need to see where you are, and where you're going.

This freedom to write and organize at will means you can untangle your thoughts as you write them.

The Gift of “Done”

They say a writing project is never finished, only abandoned.
But there is one milestone that stands above the rest: the First Draft.

Getting there is the point of Gingko Writer, and it's made easier by the unique way it allows you to work. But that doesn't mean your writing needs to stay inside Gingko Writer.

Once you are happy with your draft, you can export in two clicks to a variety of traditional formats.

Try it now


Start Writing

More Testimonials


D-Khaira

Educator and Writer

I absolutely *love* your app - and I wanted to express my gratitude for the thought and effort that you've put into it. It's helping me approach my work with so much clarity and optimism.

I'm usually quite technologically challenged, but I've found your app so seamless, and even delightful to use. The last time I had so much fun using technology was in the 90s in high school, with Microsoft's Creative Writer software.

Dec 11, 2024
Richard Schave

Computer Programmer & blogger.

There is nothing like a concept whose time has come, this is the concept, this is the product.

Daniel Boles

English writing

I've been using it for years since it was just a web app and I really like using it for structured writing projects. I used it in my MA and PhD. I also use it for marketing email and website content. I highly recommend using it for anyone. It's easy to use and super logical.

I can recommend @gingkoapp — very cool web tool for structuring prose. Got me through the third act of the last novel...

Pull Draw

Left going left

I've used it for years writing articles, podcast episodes, video courses and such. So no books or thesis for me but it works great with the ''lighter'' projects, too.

This software has quite literally saved me countless times. It’s super helpful to sort and organize your work/writings. Thank you for this, and if you haven’t tried it - it’s about time, my friend!

Author @vernftg_leben : "I published my 2nd book which I also wrote with your awesome software. It is a very large book (660 pages) and @GingkoApp was really a godsend. I can't say how thankful i am for this great writing tool." 4.8 stars and 224 reviews! amazon.de/Weg-Wassers-zufließt-endlich-loslässt/dp/3752947756

Elena Plekhanova

PHD candidate in computational ecology

Gingko helped me many-many times - removing stress from all kinds of writing in my PHD. It basically removes the frustration-part, when you stare blankly at your never-ending document and keeps (sometimes even adds) the fun part of writing. I use it for compiling reports on my analysis - and my supervisor always praises me for keeping so clear structure. Well, I praise Gingko for it!

I love Gingko writer. I use it for various applications, capturing mental models, planning out system architectures and breaking down complex problems to smaller chunks. Having worked on various complex engineering topics in the past 8 years, I have yet to come across something similar that could support me so well as Gingko. My favourite features - apart from the tree-like writing structures, - are the hot keys and the flexible pasting options. Oh, and the markdown support. If you are an engineering manager, solution architect, or just someone who likes to decompose problems in writing, I highly recommend you to try out GINGKO!

Wolfgang Risse

It Specialist

Hi, I've used it for years now. It is very useful and simple. It helps to have structured Notes. Many thanks to Adriano Ferrari.

Saket Chaudhary

A freelance writer and director

Hi I've been using this for a couple of years now to write structured outlines for film scripts and it's been very useful

Simon Griffiths

product marketing

A great tool for dynamically structuring content. Think 'mindmap' but you can add as much text as you like. As your document grows or changes, you just move the elements around

Consultant and researcher... Have always liked the 'snowball' type approach... increasing levels of detail. Just how I like to write, it allows me to jump up and down the length of the piece - and at any level of depth, to add a new note for the detail or flesh out that detail.

Der Macologe

Mac user

For those who want or need to write long texts, Gingko Writer (yes, Gingko, not the Ginkgo Tree!) is not just another cool-looking editor, but a great solution for thinking, sorting and writing. Gingko helps the budding writer write in Markdown, focus on the paragraph, see the structure of their text, gather and sort ideas and sources—all on one screen. I love this carefully crafted writing software!

Dean Gvozdic

Coder, painter, writer and musician.

I'm a long time Ginko user. I fell in love with the concept, idea and interface immediately. It's my main tool today for writing stories for videgames because it's very flexible and very creative. I never feel constrained and I can get the job done way better than in, basically, anything else. It's definitely worth checking out.

Rarely do I find a tool that is immediately helpful for my #ADHD. I struggle with writing a LOT so I tried @gingkoapp. Ive been writing school assignments, newsletters, and medium articles with it. And I gotta say, I'm in love 📝️ GingkoApp The ADHD Friendly Writing Tool 📝 👇🏻 t.co/U3V9xkjmVU

A great little app I came which just seems to perfectly facilitate getting the ideas down and allowing you to gradually refine and modify as you go. Highly recommended.

Andrew Schär

Creator of FLIXY

Congrats Adriano. I've used Gingko before for brainstorming story ideas. Really useful. Wish you all the best.

Cristian Toba

Curious guy about interesting stuff.

Congratulations and thanks @adriano_ferrari for this awesome product! I really understand your frustrations writing technical and academic papers, struggling with managing a lots of data and references. Everyone struggling with a thesis should give this a try 😅️

Great writing software. Clever, useful and flexible. I've been using it for a few years now, for various writing projects. Keen to see it grow in popularity so that Adriano (the creator / founder) can get some extra "hands on deck" to improve the ongoing support & development etc.

Denis Boucher

Part time author

If you're involved in writing of any kind, in my opinion, getting Gingko is be the best move you can make. I'm a part-time young adults detective novels writer and I cannot begin to tell you how this tool has made my life easier over the past few years. I would say that it has easily cut my story development time in half. I've tried many (many) outliners and mind mapping tools before finding Gingko, but nothing compares. This is the rare kind of software that doesn't try to be everything to everybody: it does one thing and it does it extremely well. I also use it often at work to outline anything from reports to site maps and even Powerpoint presentations. I would give it 11/10 if I could.

David Rogers

B2B Lead Generation Expert

I love Gingko!!! It's super intuitive and allows me to uncrumple my thinking (no small task!) and map out entire projects and courses at macro and micro levels. The owner/developer is also super enthusiastic and attentive re feedback/requests and provides amazing support. Get it, you won't regret it!

Alexander Deliyannis

Sustainability consultant / project mngr

Be able to focus on detail while not losing sight of the big picture; what more can one wish for?

Tad Davis

I’m me and no one else.

Gingko Writer is a kind of combination outliner and corkboard (not visually but functionally). It’s a little hard to convey how it works because I’m not sure there’s anything else quite like it. Maybe “horizontal outliner” is a better description. You can expand an idea from left to right by adding blocks of text at deeper levels, and those blocks can be easily rearranged by dragging and dropping. It’s the only writing tool I’ve found that works the same way my mind does.

I am not using this for academic or non-fiction work. It's all fiction with me, baby. The trouble with fiction is the landscape of ideas which move your plot forward change as characters develop. The plot evolves as the story unfolds on the page. Plotting in advance will only get you so far. I was 3/4 of the way through my mystery novel and was stuck big time. I mean BIG TIME. I had a huge character development reveal (building from the previous book in the series) I had the mystery beginning to unwind and needing to be solved. Yes, this all sounds very mundane... a mystery novel. Yawn. Not so. I write these ghastly to plot screwball things. I had to figure out the order of events for: one of the main characters discovering the other already knew their big 'secret.' I had a Karaoke bar, a missing boyfriend, a bank robbery, a murderer, an ex-wife bent on revenge, and the impossible job my crime solving duo had taken for a client: find a missing ham. Yes. Ham. Oh, and the song "Mac the Knife" plays a significant role in it all. I am not kidding about the ham. I had no idea how to unwind all these plot points, what order was best? What sequence could possibly make these ridiculous things fit together an a way that seemed natural? Do I find the ham first or reveal the murderer? Where is the boyfriend? Why did he take the ham anyway? Ginko Writer allowed me to play with options like nothing else I found. It allowed me to explore where, in this gigantic mess I'd created, was the place with the highest dramatic payoff to reveal each of the plot points. Does the Mac the Kinfe thing go before or after they realize the ex-wife is setting them up with the bus tour for the elderly --did I mention the bus tour that arrives at the karaoke bar? Hmm forgot about that. When should my heroes learn there is a bomb? Etc. Etc. Etc. Oh I forgot to mention the bomb... See? I need Ginko Writer just to figure out how to write about this stupid mess I'd written myself into! Ginko writer allowed me to lay out possible orders of events and sketch them out for several scenes allowing me judge dramatic and comedic impact of each element. It allowed me to explore how characters would respond to that particular sequence. The flow of the Ginko Writer system allowed me to find gaps where other pieces could logically fit, and then play it all out to see if everything made its own, crazy kind of sense. Six months of hair pulling. Three days with Ginko writer. It was magic. Freakin' magic. In case you are thinking "why not Trello?" Trello doesn't have the same idea flow ability. With Ginko Writer I could create several storyboard type "trees" and choose which one worked best. It allowed me to explore many forks in the road and see them all at once. Ginko just made sense, and I'm not even sure I used it right! It is truly amazing.

Frédéric Darnel

French designer and teacher retired.

A very innovative and flexible software concept, very useful for managing notes and structuring projects, alone or in a team. I look forward to future developments.

I love this tool. There really is nothing else like it. I have used it off and on for years for academic writing, for blogs, and just for organizing my thoughts. I hope this Gingko now has a chance to take off and get the attention it deserves.

As an academic researcher with institutional demands to publish regularily, I have found Gingko Writer as an excellent writing tool which allows me to break my research paper writing into "chunks" (sections and subsections) and greatly enhances my daily workflow. It is an excellent software for academic research writers.

A really great tool for visualizing your writing. Very pleased with its direction.

Not a writer, but I've been using this tool when facilitating group brainstorms. It's really amazing and helpful to organize an organic conversation without breaking the flow. Before that, I used mindmapping tools, but they got really messy when I needed to have content.

John Donaldson

Software enthusiast

A very useful product for short to medium-length notes that benefit from structure. Highly recommended, with a very responsive developer.

daniel rosenberg

Teaching Buddhism and meditation

This product is excellent for those who like to write lists and more Also the developer is amazing Besides coming up with this amazing idea - vertical and horizontal snippets of texts, Adriano has nurtured this software and invested into it all his energy. He made it available in Linux which meant I can use an amazing tool so I certainly recommend this

xbeta Zhang

IT volunteer in China

Gingko is really a great and unique tool when you want to write or show something. It's ideal for both detailed daily logs/diaries, or compact whole life timeline. 💯 ps. I registered product hunt account today ( Chinese Spring Festive ) just to show my support for Gingko and Adriano Ferrari. 🧡

Great Application! This works well overall but particularly well when you are unsure of the final structure of the composition as it gives a low-friction way of re-orienting the different portions where it works better as you progress in the writing. To me this makes it a big differentiator from other apps.

Christian Johnson

computational linguist

hi your product is great and i have used it for many academic and other writing projects. all the best.

John Vann

UX Specialist, tech enthusiast

I've used this product to tackle my work related documentation, and it makes it so much easier to jump around to different areas of the doc I need to address. A very thoughtful and novel approach to creating!

Its one of those writing apps that you stumble across while looking for 'the' outliner or mind map and give it a go - to be then left with the feeling of ... How did this even come about. It just makes sense but in a way I cant quite articulate. Great app.

Gingko Writer has transformed several of my writing and business projects. It is just as applicable to research papers as it is to business plans and mind mapping. Having mastered the keystrokes for Gingko Writer, I find it easy to handle all my outlining needs with one application instead of bouncing around to several. One of the things I like best about Gingko Writer is that it forces me to start with the highest-level outline and then flesh out pieces at progressively deeper levels. Rearranging a whole project is a snap. And whenever I realize that certain levels need to be broken out into multiple parts themselves, the app naturally responds and helps me focus on just those parts without getting overwhelmed by the whole. Bringing an entire file into a Google Doc or other word processor is simple, but I also like that I can backup to / import from a JSON file. It's an exceptionally elegant product, doing one thing *really* well. But the one thing it does applies to a much larger set of needs than you first expect. The more you use it, the more you'll discover uses for it!

I'm a big fan. Discovered this product in 2018 amid frustration trying to write long-form content. Novel and screenplay writing apps seemed like expensive overkill, but a simple word processor wasn't enough. Gingko is the perfect fit when you need more than a document but less than storyboards and character maps.

I have been using Gingko since 2015 - it is great! I love to be able to go deep when I want and easily move stuff around as I start to get the flow figure out. While I didn't write a thesis but many a research and design paper!

Iman vL

data science

Works great for outlining and reshuffling your thoughts until you have your story straigth. Used it for years and still a fan.

I use Gingko for many years, before the name was Gingko Writer and it is really useful. Help me to understand how to approach and explain complex subjects I want to write about.

Kenyan Burnham

I'm a casual developer and writer.

I pretty much use the desktop app every day. I've used Adriano's Ginkgo Writer for around 5ish years. I've used Ginkgo for taking notes for my entire graduate education and part of my undergraduate classes. I have also drafted a few safety manuals in Gingko and then used the export function to publish and I believe it is still in use today. One time I used the help function to figure out if there was a way to change the text color and Adriano responded directly to me and I can't tell you how sort of starstruck I was to have the developer answer my inane question. It's that sort of dedication behind the scenes that has continued to enamor me with the product and the developer. I've been a huge advocate for the text editor for years and I have high hopes that it'll get the recognition it deserves and that Adriano will get recognition for his work all these years. I love this product enough that I would wear a t-shirt with the logo on it (hint hint).

Even though we're competing for product of the day on the same day (Hi from Hugo Calendar), I'm stopping by to offer praise. Signed up, and this does indeed work the way my mind does, and I find it much nicer than Workflowy, which is a similar product that I tried and hated. Will give it a go with content marketing and novel writing, and see if it works.

Stephen Wakefield

nobody important

I have used this product for several years, primarily as a tool to assist in building projects that have many repeating sections that each require a little variation. I build the framework, then go back piece by piece and fill in the details. I.e., when building classes for the semester, each class needs a syllabus, a schedule, the online LMS update, student keys/tokens generated, etc, etc. I do one "generic" set of cards that has all the material that does not change class to class, copy that generic deck into a deck for each course, then go through the deck for each course adding in or changing the details that are unique to that course. On a personal level, my wife and I use it to organize our Christmas list each year. Each member of the family gets a card, gift ideas are added to the cards, and the items are checked off as they are ordered and/or received. We can access the list from any of our devices and the updates move out to all the devices in a reasonable amount of time Finally, Adriano is very approachable and he has answered several questions over the years that I have used Gingko Writer.

Devin Smith

SF based library weirdo & musician

This product is fantastic. Since I started using it in 2017, I've used it for every one of my longform magazine articles, which often require a lot of historical research (stepping through newspaper archives, tracking down gov't records, etc etc). The mouse-free interface is intuitive and top-notch. It keeps the hands focused on the keyboard and ready to write at all times. Highly recommended.

Joseph Jolton

Media artist and media arts teacher

I’ve used Gingko since I first heard about it a few years ago. Initially I used it as a way of organizing my curriculum design and courses, but I’ve since used it as a notebook, a repository for notes, links, and ideas, and for structuring stories and proposals. It’s a unique paradigm but it’s incredibly fast, easy to use, and flexible. I’ve even looked into it’s paradigm as a way to organize programming for games. Give it a try!!

Mike Stevens

Writer, Creator, Marketer.

I was one of the original near-founding, if not founding users of Gingko, and I even recall who the amazing creative writer and marketer who introduced me to Gingko Writer first, which was called Gingko App originally, so many years ago. I love Gingko Writer and there is nothing else out there that does what it does or has such a universal application for all types of writing, and there is nothing more that I would like to see, than for all writers to get behind Gingko Writer and support it now by joining on and giving it a try, and supporting it for the further development that it deserves. It is great as it is, but I can only imagine how amazing it will become as time goes on with the continued support of new users and the development led by Adriano Ferrari, the inventor and developer of this amazing writing application, and the team he puts together to take it to the next level. Adriano has always listened to his the desires of his customers and implemented their suggestions that were possible and would advance the usefulness for all customer writers. Give Gingko Writer your support and join the movement folks, you will look back on this day and remembers it, and be glad you did! Thanks Adriano!

Gingko Writer is very much a product of the zeigesit. The design is both reflective and supportive of the modern approach to knowledge and writing. The app’s elegance is breathtaking: It’s self-explanatory while also displaying structure at any level instantly. It’s superior to a standard outliner.

Manuel

IT supporter

Ginko write is a very strong writing tool and can enhance your chance to write at all, write better, write more consistent and fluidly

Baltasar García Perez-Schofield

Lecturer in computer science.

This is a tool that makes it easy to organize text in chapters and sections, or even represent mind maps.

Gingko is a SUPER USEFUL tool for outputting, structuring, organising and iterating ideas / copy / content. It is very intuitive, fluid and helpful. Even though most articles / essays / reports are linear, our relationship with the underlying material is not linear. Gingko allows you to rapidly output what you do know in a non-linear way brain friendly way. It is an invaluable writing and planning tool... I've been a paying subscriber for 7+ years.

Ana GSOM

Teacher, writer, dancer and more.

I've used it for organizing my ideas in chunks or blocks, then exploring and expanding each one of them, rearraging and finding the best order to make the text I wanted to make. This tool is great, enough that I've recommended it to my family and students. Thanks for this gem of a software!

David Parra

R Estate Developer Cryptogamer/investor

Is an amazing tool. The work Adrian has been doing all by himself is amazing i been using gingko app for years now and was very happy with it, i strongly recommend the app for all the people than wants to improve their writing, congrats on this great work

Mark Guest

Artist, writer, and game developer.

I used an early version of this quite a few years ago to write a particularly complex tabletop rpg campaign. Even then, it was not only functional, but indispensable in terms of organizing (and reorganizing!) my information and ideas. It's good stuff.

I've been using Gingko Writer since...sometime in 2016-ish? It's one of the few tools that I still keep upfront, just about every day. I organize my course lessons, client-work, books I'm chaptering out, scrappy one-time stuff on the fly.....I've even got a tree in there called, "My GrandMaster Plan" - ha! - It's a joy to use and has managed to stay lean, and bloat-free all this time. Markdown is quick to learn and everything in there just feeeeeeeels good.

Robert Waugh

No short bio right now, thank you.

Gingko Writer helps me stay focused while I write. Since I'm working on one card at a time I do much less editing as I type. Thanks to that focus I just finished writing a 60K-word first draft of a novel.

Trying to get your story written? I would highly recommend taking a look at @gingkoapp - such a great tool #writingcommunity

You ever used @gingkoapp to write your games? I used it for my latest release, and it was very effective! Highly recommend!

I want to share with you a wonderful app that helps you block out your story/script and gives you an outline you can then print out and follow - gingkoapp.com also on twitter @gingkoapp

in @gingkoapp i have AT LAST found a writing tool that helps me properly untangle my thoughts and boy does it make writing a pleasure! #amwriting

@gingkoapp WOW. Just tried out the new Gingko Writer. Amazing. Beautiful too.