How to use text replacement on Mac

What text replacement does

Text replacement turns a short abbreviation into longer text as you type. Add an entry so that ;em becomes your email address, ;addr your full address, or ;ty a polite sign-off. Type the abbreviation followed by a space or punctuation mark, and macOS swaps in the full text. A few entries, like omw, come preinstalled.

It’s built into macOS, iOS and iPadOS, costs nothing, and needs no extra app. For a handful of short phrases, it’s hard to beat.

How to set up text replacement on Mac

1. Open the Apple menu and choose System Settings.
2. Click Keyboard in the sidebar.
3. Under Text Input, click Text Replacements….
4. Click the Add button (+) at the bottom of the list.
5. In the Replace column, type your abbreviation, such as ;em.
6. In the With column, type or paste the full text, such as your email address, and press Return.
7. Click Done.

Try it in Notes. Type the abbreviation, then a space, and it expands. In some apps, a suggestion appears under the word first; pressing the Space bar accepts it. To edit an entry, double-click it in the list. To remove one, select it and click the Remove button (−).

Sync text replacements to your iPhone and iPad

Text replacements sync through iCloud. If your Mac, iPhone and iPad are signed in to the same Apple Account, an entry you add on one device appears on the others after a short while.

You can add entries on iPhone or iPad too, which is handy when you think of one while you’re away from your Mac:

1. Open Settings and tap General.
2. Tap Keyboard, then Text Replacement.
3. Tap the Add button (+).
4. Type the full text in Phrase and your abbreviation in Shortcut, then tap Save.

If entries don’t show up on another device, check that every device uses the same Apple Account, give iCloud a little time, and restart the device that’s missing them.

Useful text replacements to set up first

The best candidates are short, exact and typed often. A good starter list:

• Contact details: your work email, personal email and phone number.
• One link you share daily: your portfolio, website or calendar booking page.
• Names you misspell: a colleague’s name, your company’s exact capitalization, a product name.
• Short replies: “Thanks, I’ll take a look and get back to you today.”
• Symbols: characters you otherwise hunt for, like ₹, ™ or →.

Start with five or six entries and add more only when you notice yourself typing the same thing again. A short list you actually remember beats a long one you don’t.

Tips for text replacements that stay out of your way

• Start abbreviations with a symbol. A prefix like ; means you’ll never trigger one by accident. Without it, things go wrong quickly: use mail as the abbreviation for your email address, and “check your mail” turns into “check your you@example.com”.
• Keep a consistent pattern. ;em for email, ;ph for phone, ;li for LinkedIn. A pattern is easier to remember than a list of one-offs.
• Use it for fixes as well as phrases. Map a typo you always make, like “teh”, to the correct word, and macOS quietly fixes it every time.
• Turn it off where it gets in the way. In many apps, you can switch it off just for that app under Edit → Substitutions → Text Replacement.
• Back up your list. Select entries in the Text Replacements window and drag them to the desktop. You get a file you can drag back in later.

Text replacement limitations

Text replacement is deliberately simple, and you’ll find its edges if you lean on it.

• You have to remember every abbreviation. Ten is easy. Forty is not, and an abbreviation you can’t recall is one you won’t use. There’s no way to search your list while you’re typing.
• Plain text, and one line works best. There’s no formatting and no images. Multi-line text, like a full postal address or a short template, is awkward to enter and doesn’t always come out as expected.
• It doesn’t work everywhere. It’s dependable in Apple’s apps and many standard Mac apps, but support varies in browsers, Electron apps such as Slack, code editors and terminals.
• No organization. Everything sits in one long list in a settings window, with no folders, labels or notes.
• Not made for sensitive details. Everything you save is shown in full in the list and synced to every device on your Apple Account, so it’s not the place for card or ID numbers.

Text replacement not working on Mac? Quick checks

• Finish the word. Nothing happens until you type a space or punctuation mark after the abbreviation.
• Check the app’s setting. Open the Edit menu, choose Substitutions, and make sure Text Replacement is ticked.
• Check the entry. A typo or stray space in the Replace column means the abbreviation never matches.
• Test in Notes. If it works in Notes but not elsewhere, the problem is the other app, not your list.
• Missing on another device? That’s usually iCloud sync; see the steps above.

When to use OnePaste instead, or alongside

Text replacement shines for short phrases you type constantly and will never forget. It gets harder with the long tail: the twenty links, numbers and details you share a few times a week. Either you forget the abbreviation, or you stop and open System Settings to look it up.

OnePaste takes a different approach. Instead of typing an abbreviation, you double-tap ⌥ ⌥ in any app and a small overlay opens next to your cursor. Type a few letters of what you want, like “link”, “pan” or “behance”, and press Return. You’re searching, not remembering, so a library of fifty items is as easy to use as five.

• Works where you type. The overlay never steals keyboard focus, so pasting works in browsers and Electron apps like Slack, Notion and Gmail in Chrome.
• Multi-field snippets. Save a card with its number, expiry and name, then paste each part separately.
• Private by design. Sensitive items are masked in the list, and if you copy one, it’s wiped from the clipboard after a minute. Everything stays in a local file on your Mac.
• Organized. A Library window groups snippets into collections, with search and drag-to-reorder.

Plenty of people use both: text replacements for a few tiny phrases, and OnePaste for everything they’d otherwise go looking for. Recruiters, for example, keep scheduling links, careers pages and office addresses in OnePaste rather than memorizing a shortcut for each. See all OnePaste features.

Need more than text replacement?

If you like abbreviations but have outgrown the built-in list, a dedicated text expander adds organization and richer content. Our guide to the best text expander for Mac compares the main options fairly, and OnePaste vs. TextExpander explains when a search-based tool suits you better than abbreviations.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use Mac text replacements on Windows?

No. Text replacements are an Apple feature that syncs between Mac, iPhone and iPad. If you also work on Windows, you’ll need a cross-platform text expander such as Espanso, TextExpander or aText.

Do Mac text replacements sync with iPhone?

Yes. Text replacements sync through iCloud to an iPhone or iPad signed in to the same Apple Account. On iPhone, you’ll find them in Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement.

Can a text replacement include line breaks?

Not reliably. macOS text replacements work best with a single line of plain text; multi-line text is awkward to enter and may not expand as expected in every app.

How do I back up or export my text replacements?

Open the Text Replacements list, select the entries and drag them to your desktop. macOS saves them as a file you can drag back into the list later.

How do I delete a text replacement on Mac?

Go to System Settings → Keyboard → Text Replacements…, select the entry and click the Remove button (−). The change syncs to your other devices.

What’s the difference between text replacement and a text expander?

Both turn abbreviations into longer text as you type. Dedicated text expanders add more on top, such as better organization, richer content and, in some cases, team sharing.

Is there a way to use snippets without remembering abbreviations?

Yes. Search-based tools like OnePaste or Raycast Snippets let you find a snippet by typing part of its name, so you don’t need to recall an exact shortcut.