Welcome to TextExpander support, how can we help?
Learn about Smile products, search our Knowledge Base for answers. Getting started? Get service, support, and professional advice through our video tutorials.
Video Tutorials
FAQ
Have a question? Search our Knowledge Basefor answers.
Here are a few of our other resources:
- Getting started? Watch TextExpander in action on our Video Tutorials page
- TextExpander comes with extensive Help documentation:
- In-app Help manual: Look under Help in the TextExpander menu bar
- Online Help manual
- Off-line Help manual: Download the PDF
- Check out our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) below for the most common questions
- Can’t find your answer? Contact us
Buy TextExpander now from our web store. To buy from within the product itself, click here for instructions. (We offer a 90-day money-back guarantee, so you can buy with confidence.)
TextExpander 5 is $44.95. Family Pack licenses, for home use, are $59.95. Office Pack licenses, which cover 5 users in an office, are $129.95. Upgrades from earlier versions of TextExpander are $19.95, and free to users who purchased on or after January 1, 2015.
TextExpander cannot be "sandboxed" according to the latest restrictions from Apple, and is therefore no longer available in the Mac App Store. Those who currently have Mac App Store licenses just need to download TextExpander 5, which will see the Mac App Store license and offer the upgrade.
Yes. TextExpander 5 requires OS X 10.10 or later. For OS X 10.9 – 10.7 download version 4. Locate both version on our downloads page.
For OS X 10.9, 10.8, 10.7, please download TextExpander 4.3.6.
For OS X 10.6.x, please download TextExpander 3.4.2.
For OS X 10.4.x – 10.5.x, please download TextExpander 2.8.1.
For OS X 10.3.9, please download TextExpander 1.3.1.For PowerPC G3 support on OS X 10.4.x – 10.5.x, please download TextExpander 2.5.
TextExpander requires access to assistive devices, but that setting has moved locations from OS X 10.8 to OS X 10.9. Instead, please go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Accessibility. Both "TextExpander" and "TextExpander Helper" need to be checked in the Accessibility list.
You can find an explanation, and a fix, in our blog post "Yosemite, TextExpander Helper, and Accessibility Permission."
Yes, if you are the only user of those computers. If you have multiple computers used by more than one person, you can purchase a Family Pack license, which covers 5 computers in the same household. (Click here for more information.)
- Suggests snippets from phrases you habitually type
- Reminds you of missed opportunities to use your abbreviations
- Customize snippet file location
- Sync via iCloud Drive or any sync folder
- Simplified expansion of lengthy fill-ins and scripts
- Search and expand snippets, abbreviations, and suggestions inline as you type
- Preview expanded snippet
- Refreshed statistics display
- Supports JavaScript snippets that also operate on iOS
- Updated for Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite (required)
For the complete list, read the TextExpander 5 detailed release notes.
It is likely that another application has enabled secure input, which prevents TextExpander and other text expansion applications from monitoring your keystrokes. There are a number of applications, including Firefox and Chrome, that cause this situation. For a list of applications and suggested workarounds, please read TextExpander and Secure Input.
A good abbreviation is:
– short
– easy to remember
– unlikely to be typed by accident
– unique
Duplicating an abbreviations first character (ddate, ssig, zzip) is one way of creating abbreviations that meet these critieria.
While TextExpander does indeed log keystrokes, these keystrokes are never saved or sent anywhere. Moreover, TextExpander empties its cache whenever you type the spacebar. Thus, TextExpander hardly ever remembers more than 20 characters of what you most recently typed. Using TextExpander does not compromise your privacy.
TextExpander 5.x
1) Delete the TextExpander application from the Applications folder.
2) Delete the TextExpander settings file, Settings.textexpandersettings, wherever you have stored it. If you are not syncing your snippets, TextExpander will default to saving your file here:
Macintosh HD/Users/[Home]/Library/Application Support/TextExpander/Settings.textexpandersettings
TextExpander 3.x and 4.x
1) Delete the TextExpander application from the Applications folder.
2) Delete the TextExpander settings file here:
[Home]/Library/Application Support/TextExpander/Settings.textexpander
TextExpander 2.x
1) Go to TextExpander's preference pane in System Preferences and uncheck "Enable TextExpander" in the Preferences tab.
2) Choose "Show All" in System Preferences.
3) Control-click on the TextExpander icon and select "Remove TextExpander Preference Pane" from the resulting contextual menu.
Use the handy online serial number lookup.
Didn’t find your answer? Search our Knowledge Base.
System Requirements
TextExpander 4.x requires OS X 10.7 or later.
For OS X 10.6.x, please download TextExpander 3.4.2.
For OS X 10.4.x – 10.5.x, please download TextExpander 2.8.1.
For OS X 10.3.9, please download TextExpander 1.3.1.
For PowerPC G3 support on OS X 10.4.x – 10.5.x, please download TextExpander 2.5.