macOS Text Replacement Export/Import
What I didn’t know until recently is that Apple provides a hidden—but documented, amazingly!—way to export your replacement pairs to a property list file. All you have to do is select the items to export (Command-A selects all) and drag them to the desktop. You can then edit that file in a text editor like BBEdit or TextEdit before reimporting it, which is merely a matter of dragging it back into the Text Replacements dialog. This export/import feature is useful in three ways:
- Backup: If you have an extensive set of text replacements, making a backup would be a sensible precaution.
- Sharing: Any Mac user can import your text replacements, so if you’ve built up a custom collection of scientific, medical, or technical replacements, you can share them with colleagues.
- Easier editing: Bulk changes might be easier to make outside Apple’s one-at-a-time interface.
[…]
I was all ready to give you an updated version of the TidBITS AutoCorrect Dictionary that could be imported into the Text Replacements dialog, but after hours of testing, I just couldn’t make it work reliably enough.
Previously:
Update (2026-05-11): Vítor:
The article mentions an invisible plist file, but in the past I’ve found the best way to export Text Replacements to be querying the ~/Library/KeyboardServices/TextReplacements.db SQLite database.
I’ve queried that effectively for years in an Alfred workflow because people asked for a way to export Text Replacements into Alfred Snippets.
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Good heavens! I just edited the .plist file to add new lines to some of my text snippets and it works on both macOS and iOS.
At least in Sequoia, selecting all text replacements and right clicking offers options to import and to export.
