Import OS X Shortcuts into TextExpander

If you’re new to TextExpander, you may already have text shortcuts set up on your iPad, iPhone, or Mac.

On the Mac, these shortcuts are found in the Keyboard system preferences pane under the Text tab (System Preferences > Keyboard > Text).

Here’s how you can import your OS X shortcuts into TextExpander as a snippet group:

  1. Be sure you’re using OS X 10.9 (Maverics) or OS X 10.10 (Yosemite), as this script doesn’t work on earlier versions of OS X
  2. Download Import OS X Shortcuts.zip
  3. If you don’t have Safari set to automatically open “safe” files, please double-click the Import OS X Shortcuts.zip file to decompress it. You will then see the script named “Import OS X Shortcuts”
  4. Double-click the “Import OS X Shortcuts” script and it will open in Script Editor, an app that comes with your Mac
  5. Click the Run button in the toolbar, or choose Script -> Run from the menu

After you’ve run the script, you should find that TextExpander has a new group at the end of your snippet list named “OS X Shortcuts” with the contents of your OS X shortcuts.

Please note that we consider this script experimental and unsupported, but if you encounter an error, please send us the exact text of the error message and/or a screen shot, and we’ll see what we can do.

(To take a screen shot, hold down the Command + Shift + 4 keys, and drag the resulting cross-hair cursor over the intended picture area. To take a full screen shot, hold down the Command + Shift + 3 keys. You will find a “Screen Shot…date…” file on your Desktop.)

For those who are interested in scripting, this script uses an AppleScript Library, which was introduced in OS X 10.9 (Mavericks). These turn out to be very handy for creating a script such as this.