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BibDesk

BibDesk is a graphical bibliography manager for macOS, providing powerful BibTeX file management for Mac users. It is free and open-source. It is under active development by a small group of volunteer contributors and more are always welcome.

Some people (for example, professor Dan Sheffler and software developer Christian Tietze) have called BibDesk the best bibliography manager for macOS.

Have a question?

If you have a question about using BibDesk, please first check out the FAQ (frequently asked questions), then ask on the bibdesk-users mailing list if your question is still unanswered.

See BibDesk in Action

Movies

Check out one of these screencasts to see some of the ways people use BibDesk to manage their reference database:

• Streamline your use of academic citations by Bryan Roberts (blog post with embedded video or video on YouTube, 2009): Bryan, a philosophy professor, shows how he uses BibDesk, TextMate, Quicksilver, and Google Scholar together.
• Academic workflow using Scrivener, BibDesk, Skim, LaTeX, and all the rest of it by Matthias Nott (blog post with embedded video or video on YouTube, 2017): Matthias, a programmer and information technology researcher, shows his complex system for using BibDesk with other software.

Tutorials

Some tutorials written by users:

• Setting up BibDesk to manage your library of books, references, and media by Andrew Tchieu (blog post, 2012): Andrew describes why and how he uses BibDesk. He mentions: general application behavior, TeX typset preview, cite key format, autofile, searching for articles, and drag and drop.
• How I cite by James Davenport (blog post, 2015): James describes how he manages citations in LaTeX. His summary: "Get bibtex citations for every paper, put them in BibDesk to make a nice 'library'. Every paper or manuscript, just point your bibliography to this one file. The end."
• Intro to BibDesk and BibDesk and LaTeX citations by Dan Sheffler (blog posts, 2014): Dan introduces BibDesk and explains how to use it to cite sources easily while writing in Pandoc Markdown, for final output in a variety of formats such as LaTeX and Microsoft Word.
• A mini-tutorial on getting started with BibDesk by Kathy Kieva (PDF file, 2009): This short document describes three of the most basic of BibDesk's many functions, namely: creating a new bibliography, creating new references, and adding references from existing files via the "New Publications from Clipboard..." menu command. There are many other ways to use BibDesk.
• How to generate MLA, APA, Chicago, or any other style bibliography from BibTeX/BibDesk files by Matthew Watson (blog post, 2008): Matthew introduces BibDesk and describes perhaps the easiest way to produce a bibliography in any style by using Zotero as a "middleman" between BibDesk and WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processors.
• Making a .bib file with BibDesk by Reed College CIS Help Desk (2007)
• The Wikipedia article on BibDesk is not a tutorial but provides a general overview of BibDesk's functions, with many footnotes to more detailed information in the online user manual and other websites.

What else does it do?

• Drag and drop or copy and paste references from the web and other files
• Open reference files from PubMed directly
• Edit and search your reference database with ease
• Keep PDF copies of papers filed automatically
• Import references in many formats: RIS, Pubmed, Refer, MARC
• Search online databases directly from within BibDesk
  • PubMed
  • many public libraries using Z39.50
• Browse Web databases within BibDesk and import data
  • Integrated web browser—see the Web group in the left-hand source list
  • Supports scraping references from Google Scholar, ACM DL, Hubmed and more
• Powerful scripting
  • rich AppleScript support
  • script groups and input filters
• Keep organized with keywords and smart groups
• Use autocomplete in some LaTeX editors (notably TeXShop) for your cite-keys
• Format citations for rich text editors like Microsoft Word, Pages, and TextEdit

System Requirements

The current release of BibDesk requires macOS version 10.13 or higher.

Older releases of BibDesk are available (unsupported) that run on previous versions of Mac OS X (both PPC and Intel):

Mac OS X version	Latest BibDesk version
OS X / macOS 10.10, 10.11, 10.12	1.8.20
OS X 10.9	1.8.2
Mac OS X 10.7, 10.8	1.7.9
Mac OS X 10.6	1.6.22
Mac OS X 10.5	1.5.10
Mac OS X 10.4	1.3.22
Mac OS X 10.3	1.2.11
Mac OS X 10.2	1.1.8

Current Version

See the BibDesk main page for download links and release notes.

User Documentation

The most current version's User Manual is available. This is the same information that's available from the Help menu inside BibDesk.

What's on the Wiki

• BibDesk Applescripts to extend functionality
• Other Applications that extend functionality
• BibDesk Search Groups to search Z39.50, Entrez (PubMed), Web of Science, or DBLP databases
• Searching the Web with BibDesk's Web Group
• Templates to customize export, preview, and more
• Format Citations for Editors explains how to use BibDesk with writing apps like Microsoft Word or Apple Pages
• FAQ answers frequently asked questions
• Tips and Tricks shows hidden features
• Developer Information
• BibDesk Localization
• Bug Reporting Guidelines
• User Screenshots

About the Wiki

A SourceForge.net user account is required to edit pages. This is necessary to avoid regrettable wiki spam.

Contributor Kudos

BibDesk is a community project, and wouldn't be nearly as good without people pitching in to help code, test, and write documentation. Thanks to all our contributors!