How to migrate from Ulysses to iA Writer
This is my first article I have ever written posted here and I am not a native speaker. So please forgive me my mistakes.
You can also skip to the part, where the Migration process begins.
I have been using Ulysses casually for a few months. Sometimes I have wrote down my thoughts regularly and sometimes I did not write anything for weeks. But it was fine, since I have already paid for one of the best writing tools I have ever used and expected to get a newer version here and then. Until recently Ulysses announced it’s new subscription model. Being a developer myself, I understand that it’s sometimes hard to get money for the software you have worked hard on. Even though I might still pay on a yearly basis for such a good tool, others might find it hard to accept that.
Nonetheless, I have started to look for a alternative and I think I have found a good one:
- iA Writer.
Basically it does a lot of the things that Ulysses also does. Of course both tools have features that are different, but this post should not be a comparison between them.
Migration process
Basically, all you need to do is to copy all your stuff from Ulysses to a external Folder and move it from there to your iA directory.
Moving to external folder
In Ulysses, go to your Library and click on Add Folder below the External Folders section.

Then, select all of your sheets (you can also select the folders, which contain the sheets) and drag them into your newly created external folder. Actually, this process will not move your sheets, but it will copy/paste them.

Importing in iA Writer
Now, locate your External Folder from Ulysses by secondary clicking it and selecting Show in Finder. All you need to do now is to locate the iA Writer directory and moving the external folder from Ulysses there. For me, my all my iA Writer stuff is in my iCloud. So I just put it into the root directory and voilà, all my sheets are well imported into iA Writer.
Of course some parts will not be formatted since Ulysses has some differences since it has developed it’s own Markdown called Markdown XL
Hope this small tutorial helps you switching from Ulysses to iA Writer.
