Text substitution does not work with Slack on Yosemite

Question

I have a text substitution setup within the System Preferences. This works most places within OS X as far as I can tell, but it does not work in Slack. (Their native app for OS X version 1.1.4 - 2814)

Does anyone know why?

UPDATE
It looks like this is not specific to Slack at all

Are you using a slack application (if so what version and name) or a browser (if so what version and name)? — bmike, Oct 08 '15 at 23:29
Sorry, I should have mentioned that. I'm using the official Slack client for Mac OS X, version 1.1.4 (2814). — jordelver, Oct 08 '15 at 23:36
If you have Chrome, does it work there? Slack uses the same engine. — 0942v8653, Oct 09 '15 at 00:09
No, it doesn't work in Chrome either, so it looks like it's more likely to be a Chrome issue? — jordelver, Oct 09 '15 at 08:42
Wow, man. I came here because my substitution of shrugs not working in Slack. :) The only difference is that my shortcut is '/' (two slashes) — okutane, May 16 '17 at 16:12
2nd "wow": It looks like the substitution do work in native slack app, only UI part is broken and not shown. I believe if you write &shrug; in slack text area and hit spacebar the replacement will occur. — okutane, Aug 04 '17 at 16:09
Ok, this is hilarious. I found this post while experiencing the same issue - down to the specific replacement! The only difference is that my input token is :shrug. — Lyndsy Simon, Apr 21 '23 at 20:02

score 14 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 22 '19 at 18:10

14

Even after following the instructions in the accepted answer, this still did not work for me until I followed these instructions. Basically, run the following in a terminal:

defaults write -g WebAutomaticTextReplacementEnabled -bool true

or to only change Slack's behavior (and not pollute your global domain):

defaults write com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap WebAutomaticTextReplacementEnabled -bool true

edited Feb 22 '19 at 18:10

hohle

3
2

answered Jul 06 '16 at 15:27

tbizzle

141

2

don't forget to restart the client after doing this- then it appears to work fine! – pennstatephil Feb 20 '18 at 17:21
This seems to be the correct answer as of September 2022. – tomshafer Sep 01 '22 at 10:55
1

This isn't working for me. Just me? – Oliver Joseph Ash Nov 24 '22 at 12:18
This doesn't for me either on Monterey 12.6.1 and Slack 4.29.149 – frederix Dec 02 '22 at 17:02
This worked for me on Ventura 13.3.1 - didn't even have to restart the client. – Lyndsy Simon Apr 21 '23 at 20:11

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 27 '16 at 13:15

5

Activate the "Text Replacement" option in the edit menu.

answered Apr 27 '16 at 13:15

carrieje

174

Don't have such menu items for Slack "2.6.1 Direct Download" and macOS Sierra 10.12.4 (16E195) :( – okutane May 16 '17 at 16:17
not present in 3.0.5 direct download either. using @tbizzle's answer and restarting client worked. – pennstatephil Feb 20 '18 at 17:20
5

As of Slack 3.0.5, accepted answer seems deprecated. The option in the menu is no longer available. – carrieje Feb 21 '18 at 23:48

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 10 '15 at 19:04

3

So, it seems that Text Substitutions have not been implemented in Chrome so I assume that is the underlying problem I'm having with Slack.

answered Oct 10 '15 at 19:04

jordelver

283

@carrieje's answer is correct. You don't have to wait for Chrome to implement anything! – JakeRobb Apr 28 '16 at 14:27

Text substitution does not work with Slack on Yosemite

3 Answers3