Why are My Expansions Slow?

How to Fix Slow Expansions

There are several things that might be causing the issue that you’re experiencing. Let’s run through some of the common causes.

  • Please double check that you meet TextExpander’s system requirements as shown at the bottom of our download page https://textexpander.com/download
  • Do you have enough space on your hard-drive as well as available RAM usage? If not, deleting unneeded files as well as ending unused processes may help.

If neither of those seems to be the root issue, let’s try a clean install. A clean install would remove all cached files that a standard reinstall process might leave behind, and will also ensure that TextExpander is installed correctly.

(Note: Your snippets are safe on TextExpander.com.)

Please follow the steps for either Windows or macOS below.

MacOS

  1. Open a Finder window and hit ⌘F. In the search box, type TextExpander
  2. Set ‘Kind’ to ‘Application’ and make sure search is set to ‘This Mac’
  3. Move all versions of TextExpander to the trash
  4. Open another Finder window.
  5. Hit Shift-Command-G.
  6. Paste in the following: “~/Library/WebKit/”
  7. Delete the folder with name com.smileonmymac.textexpander.
  8. Empty the trash
  9. Go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy pane
  10. If TextExpander and/or TextExpander Helper appear in the list, remove them with the ‘-‘ button
  11. Restart your computer.
  12. Download TextExpander from here: https://TextExpander.com/download/
  13. After unzipping the downloaded file, move TextExpander to your Applications folder
  14. Double-click TextExpander to launch the application and follow instructions to enable Accessibility permissions.

Windows

  1. Uninstall TextExpander via Add/Remove Programs
  2. Go to the Windows Desktop
  3. Hit the Windows and R key simultaneously
  4. In the Run window that appears type the following, including the quotation marks:
    “%LOCALAPPDATA%\Smile”
  5. Delete the TextExpander folder.
  6. Restart your computer.
  7. Download a new installer from here: https://textexpander.com/download
  8. Run the installer.