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Conflicting Snippet Abbreviations

When abbreviations are too similar to each other, they will conflict. For example, if there are two Snippets with the same abbreviation and different content, TextExpander won’t know which content to expand, and will expand the first one found.

How to Find Conflicting Snippet Abbreviations

Look at your list of Snippets, and you’ll see what type of conflict a Snippet has based on the color of the abbreviation.

  • Grey: No conflicts, Snippet will expand
  • Teal: Duplicate Snippet Abbreviations, Snippet will still expand
  • Black: Conflicting Abbreviations, one or more Snippets have similar abbreviations or the same abbreviations with different content, Snippet won’t expand correctly

How to Resolve Conflicting Snippet Abbreviations:

  1. Open the Snippet with the conflict
  2. A small conflict indicator will appear in the Snippet, select it to open the Conflicts list

There are a few different actions you can take to resolve the issue:

  • Change the Snippet case-sensitivity
  • Change one of the abbreviations
  • Remove one of the abbreviations altogether
  • Add a prefix to all the abbreviations in the Snippet Group, found in the Snippet Group’s Settings
  • Change the abbreviation prefix if there is one, in the Snippet Group’s Settings
  • If a delimiter is being used, change the Expansion Mode to be either Keep Delimiter or Abandon Delimiter

How TextExpander Handles Abbreviation Conflicts

Currently, conflicts only appear in the TextExpander app. If two groups have a Snippet with the same abbreviation, and a single user has both Snippet Groups, there is a work around.

  • Disable one Snippet Group (Click on it to open Snippet Group Settings and set “Expand in:” to “None”)
  • Create a new Snippet Group with alternate abbreviation prefix of the user’s choice for each Snippet in the old Group.

Contact us and we can provide more details to help.