[4] The original developer was Michael McCracken, and much of the code has subsequently been written by Adam Maxwell and Christiaan Hofman.

[6] BibDesk offers an iTunes-like Cocoa-based graphical user interface for creating, editing, managing, and searching BibTeX databases.

[16] There is a graphical interface for managing custom database fields,[17] as well as a variety of ways to annotate citations.

References can be cited in any document by copy and paste or drag and drop from BibDesk, or via a macOS service.

[22] In addition, a reference can be opened quickly in BibDesk by first selecting any cite key in a LaTeX document or other text document and then using the provided macOS service "Show Reference With Cite Key" (which, like all services, can be assigned a custom keyboard shortcut).

[24] A quick search field permits searching any field in a database,[25] or any associated PDF annotations created in Skim (an open-source PDF reader created by BibDesk's developers), or the entire content of any linked external files.

[30] References can be exported via a menu command, cut and paste, drag and drop, or a macOS service.