How to Use Text Replacement on Mac

Step by step

1. 15 sec

   Open the Keyboard settings pane

   Open System Settings from the Apple menu. Click Keyboard in the sidebar. Scroll to the Text Input section. Click the Text Replacements button. A sheet opens listing every replacement already stored on this Mac, which on a new machine is a short list of nothing.

   Note: Apple has moved this panel in nearly every macOS redesign. If you cannot find the section, type Text Replacements into the System Settings search field.
2. 30 sec

   Create your first replacement

   Click the plus button at the bottom left of the sheet. Type your shorthand into the Replace column. Press Tab. Type the full text into the With column. Press Return. Keep the shorthand short and unlikely: a leading semicolon or two characters of nonsense works well.

   Note: Text Replacement fires on whole words, not fragments, but a shorthand that is also a real word will still ambush you mid-sentence.
3. 10 sec

   Test the replacement in a text field

   Open Notes, Mail, or TextEdit. Type your shorthand, then press Space. The shorthand becomes the full text. If nothing happens, check the app's Edit menu, open the Substitutions submenu, and confirm Text Replacement is checked for that app.

   Note: A replacement also fires on Return or on a punctuation mark. It does not fire mid-word, which is the behavior you want.
4. 20 sec

   Let iCloud carry the list across devices

   Replacements sync through iCloud to every device signed in to the same Apple Account with iCloud Drive turned on. Open System Settings, click your name at the top, open iCloud, and confirm iCloud Drive is on. Your iPhone then answers to the same shorthand.

   Note: Syncing is not instant. Give it a few minutes, and a sleep and a wake, before you decide it is broken.
5. 20 sec

   Know which apps ignore the list

   Text Replacement lives in the system text engine, so apps that draw their own text fields skip it. Browsers, Electron apps, and terminal emulators will not expand your shorthand. Native apps such as Notes, Mail, Messages, Pages, and TextEdit all honor it.

   Note: This is not a bug someone forgot to fix. Those apps never asked macOS to draw the field, so macOS never gets to help.
6. 15 sec

   Edit or remove a replacement later

   Return to System Settings, Keyboard, Text Input, and click Text Replacements. Double-click any entry to edit either column. Select an entry and click the minus button to delete it. Changes travel through iCloud the same way additions do.

   Note: Deleting on the Mac deletes everywhere. That is the point of the sync, and it surprises people exactly once.