Synchronize Alfred Snippets with Apple Text Replacements

[heyJoeCampbell]

Apple allows for the importing and exporting of text replacements. 

 

Could Alfred tie into this functionality by converting its snippets into .plist files and performing an Apple Text Replacements import in the background.

Alfred would also need to export every "new" Apple text replacement and import such .plist files into Alfred.

 

Is this possible?

 

If so, users would be able to access snippets/text replacements from any every Apple device (Mac, iPad, and iPhone) 

[vitor]

Welcome @heyJoeCampbell,

 

The method described in that article is unsuitable for the task, since it relies on doing part of the work manually. That said, there might indeed be a way to do it programatically. However, doing it automatically in the background on every detected change would be considerably harder. A better method to go about this would be to have a “reload” option to update the current snippets.

I like the idea of having Alfred snippets sync up with iOS’ text replacement, but it’s unclear from your post what your idea is. Are you asking for Alfred snippets to macOS text replacements conversion, or for macOS text replacements to Alfred snippets? Some considerations:

Alfred → macOS

•  (negative) Not all snippets will convert correctly, as Alfred snippets have more features (dynamic content) than macOS’ text replacements.
•  (negative) The way to do it is hacky and undocumented, making it prone to errors and breakages.

macOS → Alfred

•  (positive) Alfred’s snippets have all the features of macOS’ text replacements, so all snippets will convert correctly.
•  (positive) Getting text replacements is relatively easy and the format is clear and unlikely to change.

Both

Keeping everything in sync might or not be a pain. I have some thoughts on how we could go about doing it that I can go into if this is deemed a desirable feature.

[heyJoeCampbell]

@vitor you made excellent points regarding going from Alfred → macOS.

 

Thus only providing a macOS → Alfred would be a more solid solution.  

[LeeHW]

I realise this is an old thread, but does anyone know if this has been done now? I might start work on it myself if not, but I don't want to re-invent the wheel. I like using the Apple text replacement feature across Mac OS, iOS, and iPad OS, but the interface in Alfred it much better. 

[deanishe]