Most of us who work with Google Chrome are familiar with extensions. There is one for everything. From the most basic of spelling and grammar checkers to the most advanced productivity and focus enhancers, Chrome boasts nearly 200,000 extensions in total!

One of these many categories is that of text expansion apps. 

Text expansion apps, also known as text expander and autotext apps, are software for smartphones and PCs that can automatically replace short words with long phrases. They let you assign shortcuts or abbreviations to common phrases in order to type longer blocks of texts without typing it all out from scratch.

For example, if you use an automatic text expander for sharing your email address, you'll simply type o/eml every time to get john.doe@gmail.com. This is what it looks like in action.

Shortcuts (o/eml) are combined with actual text (the email address in this case) to form snippets. When writing or typing a lot, snippets can save you tons of time and effort. 

Since text expanders eliminate repetitive typing, writing boilerplate emails and messages, among other things, becomes a lot faster with them.

Recommended reading: How to use a text expander—A definitive guide to everything you need to know

The case for using auto text expanders on Google Chrome

Apart from lending your typing the advantage of speed, an auto text expander for Google Chrome can help you automate common, repeatable workflows across a variety of web apps. 

It can double up as an assistant to a customer support executive and fetch them canned responses in their chat app without needing to copy-paste answers afresh for FAQs each time.

It can reduce the frustration for engineers who have to key in the same code snippet multiple times, to test it out in various production environments, for example.

Sales reps can use it to save cold email templates, subject lines, and their signatures to send more emails in less time. Marketers can use it to create a snippet for the company introduction or product blurb and keep it consistent across communication channels.

There is hardly a limit to what text expanders can help you achieve in terms of skyrocketing your productivity and efficiency. 

Without further ado, let’s set you up with these handy text expander extensions for Chrome.

(Psst, we also have recommendations of text expanders for Windows, Mac, and Firefox.)

Top auto text expanders to try on Google Chrome in 2023

There are many text expansion apps for Google Chrome that offer different features. While some offer the ability to expand into multiple words at once, others will let you customize the trigger word or symbol, and then there are those with an advanced search system for snippets.

Here is a list of 7 popular auto text expanders for Google Chrome.

1. OSlash

OSlash works with superfast shortcuts to speed up your everyday typing. With this text expander, you can create customizable rich-text snippets just for yourself, or share them with your team and even your entire workplace. It can auto-expand your shortcuts virtually everywhere on the browser—across text editors, email apps, social media sites, and communication apps such as Slack and WhatsApp too.  

It also doubles up as a URL management and knowledge management tool for your workplace, saving you the 30+ hours every month spent on routine busywork.

Top features:

• Add images, URLs, and variables to snippets effortlessly
• Omnibox support: Create custom keyboard shortcuts to find, open, and share URLs instantly
• Locate the right snippet easily with a handy input widget 
• Highlight anything on the web and convert it into a snippet in one click
• Gain one-touch access to your shortcuts, snippets, tabs, and activity

Also available for: macOS,  Safari, Edge, Brave, Firefox, and iOS (coming soon)

Recommended reading: Embrace faster messaging and better user interactions with OSlash

2. TextExpander

The synonym for a text expansion app for Chrome, TextExpander is favored by freelancers, small businesses, and enterprises alike for its versatility and extensibility. 

One of the most-loved features of TextExpander is access to its vast library of snippet templates via its Public Groups. 

TextExpander users can both use and contribute to these snippets, which range from custom smiley snippets and special character snippets to sets of templates for medical professionals, lawyers, and other professions and use-cases. 

Top features:

• AutoCorrect snippet groups for English, French, and German languages
• Ability to sort and organize related snippets into groups 
• Snippet group sharing across users and devices 
• Free app updates on all subscription plans
• Auto-subscribe users to snippets for edits and get snippet statistics

Also available for: macOS, Windows, iOS

3. Text Blaze

Reusing your frequently typed information on Chrome and in Windows is a breeze or, should I say, blaze with Text Blaze. Like most of the apps on the list, it will correct your personal typos, help you replace complex terms and long phrases with abbreviations, and create message/email templates.

Top features:

• Build forms with custom, editable fill-in fields. Form fields can include text, dropdown menus, dates, toggles, and more.
• Automatically insert the current date and perform date calculations
• Simulate key presses to automate repeatable keyboard actions such as form filling
• Automatically clip required parts of the current webpage into your template

4. Magical

A text expander and autofill extension, Magical claims to work seamlessly with over 10,000 apps on the web! Its USP? It doesn’t resort to integrations to move data across websites. As a result, it is super simple to use. In addition to expanding your shortcuts, it can also populate sheets, messages, and forms without switching between tabs or copy-pasting data. 

Top features

• Advanced shortcut search with tags and a dropdown menu for shortcut discovery
• Create and lookup your shortcuts anywhere on the web with the Magical Panel
• Create unlimited shortcuts with unlimited character count per shortcut

Also available for: Edge, Firefox (as Auto Text Expander)

5. ProKeys

ProKeys is a text expander that not only does the heavy lifting of typing for you but also performs your mathematical calculations automatically without needing to leave the text editor. You could type "[[ 15% * 600 =]]" and ProKeys will return the value, 90, instantly. It also supports parentheses and exponentiation.

Top features

• Omnibox support: You can use the keyword "pk" to directly expand snippets inside of the omnibox/address bar
• Autocompletes quotes ('"') and braces - ( { [ 
• Stores the past 20 revisions of your data on your PC so you never worry about losing important snippets
• Ability to switch between local storage and cloud sync

6. FlyMSG

FlyMSG offers to be your personal writing assistant with its text expander and over 200 FlyPlates or readymade messaging templates to choose from. It makes searching for and categorizing snippets easy with multiple categories and subcategories included in all plans. Its premium Growth plan goes as far as to offer spell check for snippets created in ALL languages. 

‍Top features

• Ability to change font size and type in snippets
• Ability to embed images and GIFs/videos in snippets
• Auto-conversion of rich-text into plain-text on unsupported websites
• All-in-one Linkedin and LinkedIn Sales Navigator engagement tool

Also available for: Edge

7. Textpanda

Textpanda is “an AI powered text expander solution that lets you automate written communication”. It is a simple, no-frills tool designed for both independent and collaborative usage. Bonus? It comes with an AI-powered text generator that can help you come up with the right copy for your communication more quickly.

Top features:

• Insert custom HTML snippets with beautiful formatting minus styling hassles 
• Get a ‘saved keystrokes’ count for each snippet
• Track your snippets usage including snippets expanded, keystrokes saves, and minutes saved typing in the dashboard

Still confused about the right auto text expander for yourself? You could try out all the tools on the list, especially ones that come with a free trial and then decide which one suits your needs and budget.

Having said that, we would love for you to consider giving OSlash a spin. Read on to know why.

Choose the best auto-text expander for Google Chrome: OSlash

OSlash checks all the boxes of a great text expander. It gives you the freedom to

• Create boilerplate replies (canned responses) for customer support
• Replace your frequent, complex URLs with clean shortcuts so that they are easier to find, access, and share
• Insert variables and macros (including date, time, clipboard content, and more) to personalize your snippet templates
• Define access controls for your private and shared snippets
• Use text expansion everywhere you work on Chrome

4000+ users trust OSlash to free them from mundane, repetitive typing every single day. Plus it saves you and your team hours of time spent searching for the right information at work.

Getting started is as easy as downloading OSlash! And it’s absolutely free to try it out. 

Let OSlash take care of your busywork so you can devote your time to what really matters.