How Active Snippets Work
What are active Snippets?
On the Free plan, you get 5 active Snippets: the Snippets you can expand right now. Any other Snippet you’ve saved stays in your library until you make it active. This article explains how active Snippets work, how you make a Snippet active, and where to find your active Snippets.
Active vs. saved
Every Snippet on the Free plan is in one of 2 states:
- Active: Ready to expand when you type the abbreviation. You can have up to 5 active Snippets at a time.
- Saved: In your library, ready to expand once it becomes active. Save as many Snippets as you want, and the active ones expand. A Snippet you created on a paid plan or during your 30-day trial that uses a paid-only feature, such as date math, time math, nested Snippets, JavaScript, AppleScript, shell scripts, or conditional Fill-ins, expands on Free once you remove the paid-only feature or upgrade to a paid plan.
Active Snippets have a bolt icon next to the abbreviation in your Snippet list. Saved Snippets don’t.
How a Snippet becomes active
Your active Snippets are the 5 you’ve expanded most recently. When you expand a Snippet that isn’t active, TextExpander activates it for you. Every 2 weeks, you get to swap your least recently used Snippet for a new one. This is called a swap. See How swaps work for the details.
Once your trial ends and you move onto the Free plan, the next 5 unique Snippets you expand become your first 5 active Snippets.
See all your active Snippets
You can see your active Snippets in 2 places:
- In the Snippet list: Look for the bolt icon next to the abbreviation. You can also filter the list to Active to see only the 5 that are active right now.
- In your profile sidebar: Open your profile to see all 5 active Snippets in one place, along with the date your next swap unlocks.
What happens with saved Snippets
Saved Snippets stay in your library. When you try to expand a Snippet that isn’t active:
- If you have a swap available, TextExpander asks whether you want to use it to activate the Snippet. See How swaps work.
- If you’ve already used your swap for this period, TextExpander shows a message with the date your next swap unlocks.
Autocorrect Snippets stay separate
Autocorrect Snippets fix typos automatically, and they don’t count toward your 5 active Snippets. They’re always on and limited to small changes, like “teh” to “the,” “adn” to “and,” and “color” or “colour” in either direction.
For admins
In a TextExpander team on the Free plan, each team member has their own 5 active Snippets. Active Snippets are personal, so they don’t roll up to the team. When a team member expands a shared Snippet, it counts toward that member’s 5 active Snippets.
Upgrade for unlimited
On Pro, Business, and Enterprise plans, every Snippet you have is active, with no limit. Compare plans.