The Free Text Expander for Mac
Most text expanders for Mac cost between $5 and $60 per year, or cap the free plan at a handful of snippets. TypeFire's text expander is free forever with no subscription and no feature gates. Type abbreviations that auto-expand, assign keyboard shortcuts, run AI on your selection, and sync across Macs through iCloud. All at zero cost.
What is the best free text expander for Mac?
TypeFire is free, and free means the whole text expander. Unlimited snippets, unlimited expansions, rich text and Markdown, dynamic tokens, and the Spotlight-style search. No trial clock, no card, no snippet cap.
Pro is $18 once, for clipboard history and the AI features. The expansion you came for is not behind it.
Snippets, notes and clips. One app.
Everything you type, everything you copy, and the markdown vault you already have. Without switching apps once.
What text expanders for Mac actually cost
Almost every text expander for Mac is paid. Here is the actual price tag on the major ones, and how TypeFire compares.
Espanso is also free but uses YAML config files and a terminal-based workflow. TypeFire is a native Mac app with a visual editor.
What you get for $0
Every feature is included. There is no premium tier holding any of this back.
Abbreviation expansion
Type a short trigger like "zem" and it expands into your full email address. Works in every Mac app: Safari, Chrome, Mail, Slack, VS Code, Terminal, and more.
Global keyboard shortcuts
Assign a hotkey like Cmd+Shift+E to any snippet. Press it from any app and the snippet pastes instantly. No typing required.
Spotlight-style launcher
Press Cmd+Ctrl+1 to open a fuzzy search overlay. Type a few letters, find any snippet, paste it. Find what you need in under two seconds.
Rich text and Markdown
Snippets can be plain text, rich text with fonts and colors, or Markdown that expands as formatted HTML. The built-in TipTap editor handles everything visually.
AI tokens
Drop {{ai:rewrite}}, {{ai:summarize}}, or {{ai:translate}} into any snippet. Works with Apple Intelligence (free, on-device), Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, or local Ollama. Your API keys, your usage costs (often $0).
iCloud Sync
Sync your entire snippet library across Macs through your own iCloud Drive. Edit on your desktop, expand on your laptop. Protected by your Apple account.
JavaScript and AppleScript
Snippets can run scripts when triggered. Use JavaScript to transform clipboard contents, AppleScript to control other apps, or shell scripts for anything else.
Active development
Regular updates with new features, bug fixes, and macOS compatibility. This is not abandoned shareware.
The fine print
Free software usually has a catch somewhere. Here is exactly what TypeFire does and does not do.
Snippet content stays on your Mac
Snippets are stored as plain Markdown files in a folder you choose. They never leave your device unless you enable iCloud Sync, in which case they go through your own iCloud Drive.
No ads, no upsells
The app has no advertising surface, no "upgrade for more" buttons, and no annoying prompts. The free version is the full version.
Anonymous analytics only
TypeFire counts active installs and expansion totals only. No personal data, no snippet content, no email addresses (except the one you use to verify your install).
No future paywall
The project is built to stay free. There is no investor pressure, no growth target, and no plan to introduce a Pro tier. If that ever changed, existing users would not be charged retroactively.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about whether TypeFire is really free.
TypeFire's text expander is free with no subscription and no feature gating. Every feature is available to every user at no cost. There is no subscription and no enterprise plan. TypeFire Pro is an optional $18 one-time purchase covering six features: unlimited clipboard clips, Selection Prompts, Prompt Chains, notes sync, note version history, and saving from AI apps through MCP. It comes with a 7 day trial that needs no card. Unlimited snippets, unlimited collections, abbreviation expansion, keyboard shortcuts, the Spotlight-style launcher, rich text, Markdown, dynamic tokens, iCloud Sync, JavaScript and AppleScript, and AI tokens are all included.
There is no catch. TypeFire does not collect your snippet content, does not show ads, and does not sell data. It uses privacy-friendly analytics for anonymous usage analytics (counts and versions, no personal data) so we know how many people use it. Snippets stay on your Mac as plain Markdown files. If you enable iCloud Sync, snippets sync through your own iCloud Drive, protected by your Apple account.
TypeFire matches or exceeds the feature set of every paid text expander for Mac at $0. TextExpander's free plan is capped at five active snippets; unlimited is $60 a year. aText costs $4.99 a year, or $29.99 for a lifetime license. Typinator costs $49.99. TypeFire's text expander is free with unlimited snippets, and adds Markdown expansion, AI tokens (Apple Intelligence, Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Ollama), iCloud Sync, scripting, and rich text.
The app itself is free. AI tokens use your own API keys, so you only pay your AI provider directly (and TypeFire never marks up usage). Apple Intelligence is free and on-device. Gemini has a free tier with generous daily quotas. Local models via Ollama are free with no usage cost at all. Claude and OpenAI charge a few cents per dozen requests with monthly spending caps you set on their dashboards.
No. TypeFire has no snippet count limit, no expansion count limit, no daily usage limit, and no feature lockout. Create as many snippets as you want, organize them into as many collections as you want, and trigger them as many times as you want.
TypeFire is built by one person and runs at near-zero cost. The app is a native macOS binary distributed through a free GitHub release. There is no cloud backend to pay for because snippets stay on your device. Updates and AI features all use your own infrastructure (iCloud Drive, your AI API keys). Keeping it free removes the friction of pricing and lets the app focus on being useful rather than monetizable.
Yes. The text expander is free and uncapped, with no subscription. Pro is $18 once and covers six separate features: unlimited clipboard clips, Selection Prompts, Prompt Chains, notes sync, note version history, and saving from AI apps through MCP. Anyone who has TypeFire today will keep it free forever.
TypeFire for Chrome: the whole app in your browser
Snippets that expand on every site, Markdown notes in a folder you own, and your clips, all in a browser tab with a Spotlight over any page. Free, with the same sign-in and the same Pro as the Mac app.
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