Why can't I replace all when TextEdit is in plaintext mode?

Question

For some reason, when I switch TextEdit to plaintext mode, the find and replace menu changes, so if I want to "replace all" I have to manually hit replace a bunch of times, or flip it into rich text mode, replace all, then flip it back.

Rich Text mode:

Plain Text mode:

Am I missing a setting? Is this intended behavior?

(macOS Monterey)

Answer 1

With reference to your first picture, in the upper right part you may see the words "Replace|All" inside a button - this is in fact a combination of two buttons, one is "Replace", the other is "All". Hover over each one to see a description of what it does. So, for replacing "all", at once, tap on "All".

If you often use .txt files, the behavior of TextEdit can be improved as follows:

• In TextEdit|Preferences, tap on the tab "Open and Save" and under the label "Plain Text File Encoding" set to "Automatic" both items "Opening Files" and "Saving Files".

This way you will operate each time on strict .txt files, not messing with .rtf types.

Another good way is to use a dedicated text editor - on MAC there is VIM and PICO, from terminal. It is simple and more efficient to use such editor. For example, with vim the commands in terminal would be:

$vim myfile.txt            # this opens the file 

:%s/old-word/new-word/g    # substitute old-word with new-word globally; use gc to change one by one
:wq!                       # save to file and exit