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eaSnippet

The everyday toolbox for your Mac.

Open apps and take screenshots, find anything you copied, type saved text with a short keyword, act on the words you select, talk instead of typing, and keep your Mac awake. Six small tools in one menu-bar app, and you, or your AI agent, can change almost all of it with one command.

Download for Mac 10.7 MB
brew install --cask x/tap/easnippet

Free and open sourcemacOS 26 or laterApple siliconVersion 0.4.1

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Six tools

Everything you do many times a day, a keystroke or a click away.

⌥SpaceLauncher

Open any app or setting, take a screenshot, or lock the Mac.

Press ⌥Space and type the first few letters of an app. The one you meant is already selected, because eaSnippet remembers what you open most. Type “sound”, “wifi” or “privacy” and Return opens System Settings right on that page. The same box can also take screenshots, lock the screen, put the Mac to sleep, restart, shut down or log out.

  • Finds apps by name, by their initials (vsc for Visual Studio Code) or by a word you choose
  • Every System Settings section, and the Privacy & Security pages: “mic” opens Microphone, “full disk” opens Full Disk Access
  • Capture the screen, a window or an area; Copy Text from Area copies the words you drag over, English or Chinese
  • Screenshots can have their own shortcuts, and ⌘⇧5 can always open on the screen, a window or an area
  • Stays empty until you type, so nothing distracts you; or show your favourites first
  • ⌃N and ⌃P move through the list, like everywhere else on a Mac
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⇧⌘VClipboard history

Everything you copied, a keystroke away.

Every time you copy text, a link, an image or a file, eaSnippet keeps it in a list you can search. Press ⇧⌘V, pick an item, and it’s pasted where you were typing.

  • Pin what you need often, and see which app each item came from
  • Leaves out what apps mark as a password, and anything copied in a password manager such as 1Password, Bitwarden or Keeper
  • Keeps the last 1,000 items for 90 days (you can change both); pinned items stay
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;tySnippets

Type a short keyword, get the whole text.

A snippet is text you save once and reuse: a reply, an address, a block of code. Give it a short keyword such as ;ty. When you type the keyword in an app, it turns into the full text, with today’s date, your clipboard or a name filled in.

  • Works in the apps you type in; not in password fields, apps you exclude, or while an input method such as Pinyin is on
  • ⌃⌥V lists them all when you can’t remember the keyword
  • Write and edit them in the app, from the command line, or by asking your agent
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selectSelection actions

Select a few words in any app and a small bar of buttons appears just above them: copy, paste, save as a snippet, dictate, open a link, or actions you add. Drag the buttons to put your favourite in the middle.

  • Select a link, or a sentence with one in it, and the link button opens it in your browser
  • Works in terminals and apps that hide what you select
  • Add your own actions as small plugin files, or ask an AI agent to write one
  • Stays away from password fields and the apps you exclude
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right ⌘Dictation

Hold one key, talk, let go.

Hold the right ⌘ key and speak. A small bar at the bottom of the screen shows your words as they come in. Let go, and the text appears where you were typing. Your speech is turned into text on your Mac; nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

  • Dozens of languages with Apple’s built-in speech recognition; for Chinese and English in the same sentence, download the free Qwen3-ASR model (it runs on llama.cpp from Homebrew) or SenseVoice
  • With Qwen3-ASR, names and terms on your screen are more likely to come out spelled the way they’re written
  • With Qwen3-ASR, words you stumble over and say again (“I I think”, “the the”) come out once, and what you mean, like “really really”, stays
  • Each dictation also stays on the clipboard, in case you want it again
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right-clickKeep awake

Keep your Mac awake with one click.

Right-click the eaSnippet icon in the menu bar (the row of icons at the top right of your screen). Your Mac stays awake with the screen on until you right-click it again. While it’s on, the icon turns green and the slot in its middle fills in.

  • Stays on until you turn it off, and comes back on when eaSnippet restarts
  • Closing the lid or choosing Sleep still puts the Mac to sleep
  • Also in the icon’s menu as Keep Mac Awake, or from the command line
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What we care about

Small on purpose.

eaSnippet started as a few tools one person needed every day, kept apart from the big apps that do everything. These five rules decide what goes in, and what stays out.

  1. 01

    Small

    A 10.7 MB download: one app that lives in the menu bar.

    Why: You use a toolbox all day, so it shouldn’t cost you memory, battery or attention. Every feature has to earn its place, and we take out what doesn’t.

  2. 02

    Fast

    The launcher is on screen in about 40 ms. Next to no CPU while you’re not using it.

    Why: A tool you reach for fifty times a day has to be there before you finish the keystroke. Waiting even a little breaks your train of thought.

  3. 03

    Focused

    Six everyday tools, done carefully. No extension store, no account, no settings maze.

    Why: We built eaSnippet to replace the parts of bigger apps we actually use every day, not all of them. Fewer features means each one gets the care it needs.

  4. 04

    Open

    One settings file. A command for nearly everything the app does. MIT-licensed source.

    Why: You, or your AI agent, can change almost anything in seconds: add a snippet, move a shortcut, fix a setting. Very little is locked inside a window you have to click through.

  5. 05

    Newest macOS

    Made for macOS 26 and Apple silicon only.

    Why: Skipping older systems means no compatibility code to carry, and it lets eaSnippet use what Apple builds in: Liquid Glass, on-device speech, Apple Intelligence and Vision.

download
10.7 MB
from ⌥Space to the launcher on screen
~40 ms
CPU while you’re not using it
< 0.1%
to find all 146 apps on our Mac
< 0.1 s

Download size of the 0.4.1 release; timings from everyday use on a MacBook Pro (M3 Pro, macOS 27).

Made for AI agents too

Just ask your agent.

Every setting lives in one plain file, and the easnippet command covers nearly everything the app does, down to opening its panels, dictating and typing a snippet in the running app. Claude Code, Codex or any agent that speaks MCP can read the built-in docs and make the change for you, in seconds. When something isn’t right, it can find out why and fix it.

  • “Turn this reply into a snippet with the keyword ;ty”
  • “Make ⌥⌘C open the clipboard history”
  • “Keep my Mac awake until I say stop”
  • “Why didn’t my keyword expand in Terminal?”
  • “Take a screenshot and read me the error on screen”

Connect Claude Code once: claude mcp add --scope user easnippet -- easnippet mcp

Over MCP, your clipboard history stays out of reach unless you start the server with --allow-clipboard, settings are read-only unless you add --allow-config, and the running app (its panels, dictation, typing a snippet) answers only with --allow-app. 

easnippet add -t "Thanks" -k ";ty" -b "Thanks for the quick reply!"Created Thanks [;ty] · 2567d77c-24da-4434-b1f2-d44b7bf01728easnippet render ";ty"Thanks for the quick reply!easnippet config set shortcuts.showHistory opt+cmd+cshortcuts.showHistory = opt+cmd+ceasnippet launcher search cal --limit 2Calendar     /System/Applications/Calendar.app     prefixCalculator   /System/Applications/Calculator.app   prefix

Get it

Install in a minute. Update with one command.

Install with Homebrew, or download the zip and move eaSnippet to Applications. Updates come from our own Homebrew tap: brew upgrade and you’re current. There’s no updater inside the app and no account to make. 

brew tap x/tap https://x.vibewait.ing/x/homebrew-tap.gitbrew install --cask x/tap/easnippet

Download the zip (10.7 MB)What’s newSource code

What it asks for

Accessibility
Needed. Lets eaSnippet see your selection, expand keywords, paste for you and hear the push-to-talk key. On macOS 27, System Settings calls it Device Control and Data Access.
Microphone
Only for dictation.
Screen Recording
Optional. For screenshots and Copy Text from Area, and to read the window’s text once per dictation so names come out right.
Automation
Asked the first time you restart, shut down or log out from the launcher.

What stays on your Mac

Your data
Snippets, history and settings stay in one folder on your Mac.
Your voice
Turned into text on your Mac. Recordings are never saved or sent.
AI
Apple’s on-device model by default. A cloud model only with your own key, and only after asking.
Going online
No tracking and no update checks. eaSnippet goes online only to download a speech model you choose, or to use an AI service you set up.
Updates
From our own Homebrew tap, when you run brew upgrade.

eaSnippet is free and MIT-licensed, built and used every day by xi. It is an independent project, not affiliated with Apple.