aTextĪText ($5) might not have TextExpander’s brand recognition or breezy interface, but it stacks up in just about every other way. If you’re looking for a cheaper alternative or just one without such a long-term commitment, check out these apps. TextExpander might be the most popular expansion service, but it’s certainly not the only one. Smile made the surprising move to a subscription service rather than continue its longstanding policy of paid upgrades, and even after a backlash-induced change of heart that lowered the annual rate to $40 for new users and $20 for current customers, it will still cost something of a premium for access to TextExpander’s snippets. One of the original alphabet automators, the typing shortcut utility has been at the beck and call of writers and coders for generations, dutifully filling in tedious lines and phrases, and saving precious seconds throughout our day.Įven at $45, TextExpander was one of the most essential and popular utilities on the Mac, but a recent change to its pricing structure has longtime users feeling scorned. For as long as we’ve been using Macs to type repetitious bits of text into emails and documents, there’s been TextExpander.
