Coming soon
Softset Type
Type a short abbreviation, get the full text.
A native text expander for Mac. Type a short abbreviation and Softset Type replaces it with the full text, including dates, fill-in fields, and your clipboard, in any app. One-time purchase, no account.
Coming soon. Planned price: $14.99 once, with a 14-day free trial.
The problem
You type the same text over and over.
Email replies, addresses, code, support answers, meeting links, today's date in the format your team uses. Each one is a few seconds, dozens of times a day, and every retyping is a chance for a typo.
Most text expanders now want a monthly subscription and a cloud account for what is, at heart, a file of your own snippets.
Softset Type demo
- Today's date
- A week from today
- Shrug
- Thank-you reply, cursor in the middle
- Type one of these in the message, or click it.
Type ;date, ;next, ;shrug, or ;thx in the message. In the real app this works in every app on your Mac.
A few characters in, the full text out, in any app.
Your snippets live in a plain file on your Mac. Softset Type watches for your abbreviations, replaces them instantly, and keeps count of how much typing it has saved you.
Snippets
Unlimited snippets
Plain text, multi-line text, and formatted text with bold, italics, and links. Organise them in folders, search them, and pin favourites.
Works where you type
Mail, Slack, Notes, VS Code, Xcode, Terminal, browsers, and Electron apps. Expansions are pasted, so they work in apps that ignore simulated typing, and there's a typing fallback for the few apps that ignore paste.
Snippet search
A global shortcut opens a search panel so you can insert any snippet without remembering its abbreviation.
Case matching
Optionally match abbreviations regardless of case and mirror it: type ;Addr at the start of a sentence and the expansion starts with a capital.
Smart placeholders
Dates and date math
Today, tomorrow, next Friday, or three weeks from now, in any format, with or without the time.
Clipboard and cursor
Drop in what you just copied and put the cursor exactly where you'll type next.
Fill-in fields
Text fields, dropdowns, and optional fields fill in from a small panel before the snippet expands.
Snippets in snippets
Reuse a signature or header inside other snippets, and transform values: uppercase, lowercase, title case, and trimmed.
Your library, your file
Conflict detection
See abbreviations that clash or can never be typed because a shorter one fires first, with suggestions for better ones.
Usage and time saved
Each snippet counts its uses and the characters it saved you, kept only on your Mac.
Import from anywhere
TextExpander, aText, Espanso, Raycast, CSV, JSON, and plain text. Export to JSON or CSV any time.
Backups
A rolling daily backup of your library, kept on your Mac, restorable in one click.
Fits how you work
Groups for certain apps
Let a group expand only in Xcode and Terminal, or everywhere except your password manager. The same abbreviation can mean different things in different apps.
Undo with Delete
Press Delete straight after an expansion and the abbreviation comes back, for the times you meant to type it.
Reminders
Type out a snippet's text by hand and a small tip shows its abbreviation, at most once a day per snippet.
Sync through iCloud Drive
Move your snippets to iCloud Drive, Dropbox, or any synced folder, and edits made on one Mac load on the others within seconds.
Privacy
What stays on your Mac
- Softset Type keeps only the last few characters you typed, in memory, to match abbreviations. They're never written to disk or sent anywhere.
- Nothing is read while a password field or other secure input is active, and never in apps you exclude.
- Snippets, usage counts, and backups are stored in files on your Mac. There is no Softset cloud.
Softset trust card
What Softset Type does with your Mac
- Internet required
- Only for license activation and a daily update check.
- Account required
- No account.
- Usage analytics
- None. Usage counts stay in your snippet file on your Mac.
- Data that leaves your Mac
- Your license key and an anonymous device ID when activating. Never what you type or your snippets.
- Permissions
- Accessibility: Required. macOS needs it for an app to notice abbreviations as you type and to paste the expansion in their place.
- Runs in the background
- Yes. It runs in the menu bar so it can expand abbreviations in every app.
- Apple notarized
- No public build yet. Releases are signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple before they're published.
- Architecture
- Planned: Apple silicon and Intel (universal).
- Minimum macOS
- macOS 14 Sonoma or later. Tested on macOS 27 Golden Gate on Apple silicon.
More detail in the privacy policy. The Mac apps contain no analytics or tracking code.
- Requirements
- A Mac running macOS 14 Sonoma or later.
- Accessibility access, granted once in System Settings.
- macOS
- macOS 14 Sonoma or later
- Price
- Coming soon. Planned: $14.99 once for one Mac, with a 14-day free trial.
- Changelog
- No public release yet. Softset Type changelog
Questions about Softset Type
Why does it need Accessibility access?
To notice when you finish typing an abbreviation, and to paste the expansion in its place. macOS requires Accessibility access for both. Softset Type keeps only the last few characters you typed, in memory, to match abbreviations. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere, and password fields are never read.
Will it mess up my clipboard?
No. Expansions are pasted and your clipboard is put back right after. Clipboard managers are told to ignore the temporary copy.
Can I bring my TextExpander snippets?
Yes. Import .textexpander files, or CSV exports from TextExpander or aText. Common TextExpander macros (dates, the clipboard, the cursor, and fill-ins) are converted. Espanso YAML and Raycast snippet exports import too.
How do I sync snippets between Macs?
In Settings, choose Move to iCloud Drive, or pick any synced folder such as Dropbox. Your snippets stay one plain JSON file there, and changes made on one Mac load on the others within seconds. There's no Softset cloud account.
Does it run scripts like TextExpander's JavaScript snippets?
Not yet. Softset Type covers dates, fields, the clipboard, nested snippets, and text transforms without running code. Script snippets may come later, only if they can be done safely.
What happens when the trial ends?
After 14 days, expansion pauses until you add a license. Your snippets stay on your Mac and you can still export them.
Get Softset Type early
Coming soon. Planned price: $14.99 once, with a 14-day free trial.
