You set up omw to type “On my way!” and it works in Messages. Then you try it in Slack, or Word, or a Google Doc, and nothing happens.

Text Replacements are the Mac’s built-in text expander, and they fail for a small number of reasons. Here’s each one, in the order worth checking.

The quick answer

Try the shortcut in TextEdit first. If it expands there, your replacement is fine and the app you were in either has the feature switched off ( Edit → Substitutions → Text Replacement ) or doesn’t use Apple’s text system at all. If it doesn’t expand in TextEdit either, check the shortcut’s spelling in System Settings → Keyboard → Text Replacements… and remember it only expands after you type a space or punctuation.

1. Test it in TextEdit

This one step tells you which half of the problem you have. Open TextEdit, make a new document, type your shortcut and press Space.

If it expands, the replacement itself is fine, and the rest of this article is about the app you were using.…