Use Claude in Any Mac App via Keyboard Shortcut

The Claude desktop app from Anthropic is built for conversations. You open a window, you have a chat, you copy results back to wherever you actually wanted them. It is the right tool when you want to reason something through with the model.

It is the wrong tool when all you want is a one-shot rewrite of text that already exists somewhere else on your screen. For that, you do not want to open a window at all. You want to highlight text, press a key, and have the rewritten version replace your selection. In place. No app switching.

TypeFire does that for Claude. This post is the setup.

What it does in one paragraph

You highlight text in any Mac app. You press a global keyboard shortcut. TypeFire reads your selection, sends it to Claude (Anthropic's API directly, not through any TypeFire server), and the response replaces your selection. The roundtrip takes about a second with Sonnet, less with Haiku. Works in Mail, Slack, Notes, Cursor, ChatGPT (yes, even there), Chrome, Figma comments, anywhere.

The same flow runs other actions: summarize, translate, fix grammar, generate replies, custom prompts. Each can have its own keyboard shortcut.

Anthropic API setup

You need a Claude API key. Claude Pro and Claude Max subscriptions do not include API access. The API is a separate product on Anthropic's side, with its own billing.

1. Go to console.anthropic.com, sign in or sign up.
2. Open Settings, Plans and Billing. Click Buy Credits. Add at least $5. Required: without credits the API returns "credit balance too low" on every request, even with a valid key. Five dollars covers thousands of typical rewrites with Sonnet.
3. Go to API Keys in the sidebar, click Create Key, name it TypeFire, copy the key (starts with sk-ant-).

That is the Anthropic side. Total time: about three minutes including signup.

TypeFire setup

1. Install TypeFire. Free, native, signed. Anonymously usable; one-time email verification on first launch.
2. Open Settings, AI tab.
3. Click the Claude provider button (top of the AI tab).
4. Paste your API key in the Claude field. Click Show to verify it pasted correctly. Click Test. The dot next to the Claude section turns green.
5. Pick a model. Sonnet 4.6 is the balanced default. Opus 4.7 is more capable but slower and pricier per token. Haiku 4.5 is the fastest and cheapest if you only need quick rewrites.
6. Make sure Active Provider at the top is set to Claude.

Now create a snippet. Body: {{ai:rewrite}}. Click into the Insert Body shortcut field and press your chosen keyboard combination. Save.

That snippet is now globally bound. Highlight any text in any app, press the shortcut, Claude rewrites it.

Useful patterns

Each row below is a separate snippet. Different bodies, different shortcuts.

• {{ai:rewrite:professional}} for outbound emails and customer-facing comms. Cleans up tone, fixes structure, keeps your meaning.
• {{ai:rewrite:keep my voice exactly, fix only the awkward bits}} for when you want minimal intervention. The free-form modifier after the second colon goes straight to the model as instruction.
• {{ai:summarize:bullets}} for compressing customer emails or meeting notes into action items.
• {{ai:translate:German, formal Sie form}} for the kind of nuance you cannot get from Apple Translate.
• {{ai:respond:empathetic and offer a concrete next step}} for support replies. Highlight the customer's message, fire the snippet, get a draft reply.
• {{ai:custom:turn this into a 280-character LinkedIn post}} for repurposing notes into social posts.

The free-form modifier (anything after the second colon) is the hidden power feature. It goes to Claude as additional system instruction. You can describe what you want as plainly as you would in a chat window.

Why TypeFire instead of the Claude desktop app

Different jobs.

• Claude desktop app: chat. Multi-turn. Document upload. Project management. The full Claude experience.
• TypeFire AI tokens: one-shot transformations of existing text. No window. No conversation. Highlight, key, replace.

Most people use both. Claude desktop for hard thinking, research, long-form writing. TypeFire for quick rewrites, summarizations, translations, and grammar fixes throughout the day. They do not conflict.

There is also a privacy difference worth knowing. TypeFire is bring-your-own-key. Your API key sits in TypeFire's local config file. Every API call goes directly from your Mac to Anthropic's API. TypeFire's servers see none of it: not the key, not your text, not the response.

Cost in practice

Sonnet costs roughly half a cent per typical AI rewrite (varies with input length). Haiku is cheaper. Opus is more expensive. With $5 of prepaid credits and Sonnet, you get on the order of 1,000 rewrites before refilling. For most personal use, that is months.

Anthropic also has spending caps you set on the dashboard. You will not get a surprise bill. If you blow through your credit balance, the API returns the same "credit balance too low" message and TypeFire pastes an inline placeholder instead of charging you anything you did not authorize.

Compared to TypeFire's other AI providers

OpenAI has the same setup pattern, same prepaid-credits model. Output quality is comparable. Pick whichever ecosystem you already pay for.

Gemini has a free tier and is the best zero-cost option. Slightly behind Claude on some writing tasks, but completely fine for most rewrites and summaries. If you want to try AI tokens without spending anything, start there.

How to start

Three actions, total time five minutes:

1. Get a Claude API key at console.anthropic.com (3 min including credit purchase).
2. Download TypeFire at typefire.app (1 min).
3. Paste key, set up {{ai:rewrite}} snippet with a shortcut, try it (1 min).

If it works for the way you write, it stays out of the way and saves you the same amount of time every day. If it does not, no subscription to cancel, no commitment.