p0deje
Canned Responses
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Problem
Summary Add an optional “Canned Responses” section to Maccy—a dedicated place where users can save, organize, and quickly paste frequently used snippets or boilerplate text via a separate keyboard shortcut.
Motivation I use Maccy over 1,000 times per day—it’s exactly what it needs to be for general clipboard history. In my line of work, however, I often retype the same commands, email templates, and code snippets repeatedly. A built-in way to store and access these “canned responses” would save time and reduce typing errors.
Proposed Solution New Shortcut / Menu
Introduce a configurable global hotkey (e.g. ⌘⇧C) that opens the “Canned Responses” popover.
Alternatively, nest canned responses as a sub-category in the existing Maccy menu.
Organization
Allow users to create folders or tags for grouping related responses (e.g., “Email,” “Git Commands,” “API Keys”).
Display folder names in the popover sidebar for quick navigation.
Adding Responses
Context-menu action on any clipboard entry: “Save as Canned Response.”
Optionally allow manual entry in the preferences panel for snippets not currently in history.
Removing / Editing
Right-click on a canned response in the popover to rename, move folders, or delete.
Provide an “Edit” mode in the preferences UI for bulk management.
Persistence
Store canned responses in a JSON or SQLite file alongside existing Maccy configuration.
Ensure compatibility with iCloud Drive sync (if already supported by Maccy).
Alternatives Considered Relying on external text-expander tools (adds overhead and breaks Maccy’s unified UX).
Storing favorite snippets in the main clipboard history (hard to distinguish from ephemeral items).
I believe this enhancement keeps Maccy lightweight while unlocking a powerful productivity boost for power users. Happy to discuss any details or refine the design!
Solution
No response
My only thoughts on this is I wonder if this now loses the original purpose of Maccy? Since the original intent was to create a lightweight and simple tool. This would turn Maccy into another sort of product. Are there any dedicated canned response tools that fit bill, than push that functionality into Maccy? Just a thought.
I thought about this too and do admit its boarderline. I dont think its a huge feature and fits organtically in with cuting and pasting. But if its too far so be it, ill respect the call. I am bias with a high desire of the feature for my day to day work.
It's been requested multiple times (#347, #176, #581, #307), so there is definitely a need for such a feature. I just need to find a time to sit down and prototype something.
Clipy has snippets and it's great. I'm looking for an alternative because it's not maintained anymore. Honestly, I don't think it's a stretch from this kind of app.
My pitch: If you think about how you use snippets or canned responses, you have to copy them from one place to another, so the "copy-paste" is part of the process. Some apps like Gmail do offer canned responses, but there are many use cases where you need a snippet that needs to be used across many apps (be it a browser or a native app), and so it's not possible to rely on apps offering this feature.
While using Clipy I had an average of ~30 snippets, and so installing an entire new app with releases/upgrades, another global hotkey, and another icon in the tray to handle such volume doesn't really justify it.
There's two scenarios for opening Maccy menu,
- to reuse something is current immediate stack - to reuse or save.
- access saved item
Two sections - one for current, another for saved. If we used saved and sis not copy anything new we can reopen menu already on saved tab.
To keep the list lightweight we can have pin icon that appears on hover. This copies item to saved.
