The first 15 phrases worth saving as snippets

Not sure what to save? Here are fifteen phrases almost everyone types again and again, with triggers and starter wording to adapt.

Pages ieu mesin diterjemahkeun ti Inggris. Teks Inggris jeung Korea téh otoritatif.

The hardest part of starting with a text expander is deciding what to save. A blank list feels like homework. This guide gives you fifteen phrases that nearly every working person types repeatedly, with a trigger for each. Copy the ones that fit, rewrite them in your own voice, and ignore the rest. You can have the whole set ready in about twenty minutes.

Greetings and closings

These are in almost every message you write, so the saving adds up quickly.

Hello,

Thank you for your message.

Thank you again. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do.

Best regards,
Your Name

Thank you very much for your help. I really appreciate it.

Contact details you keep looking up

Details that you have to look up or copy from an old email are the most frustrating to retype, and the most error-prone.

Example Studio Co., Ltd.
12 Sample-ro, Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do, Republic of Korea

+82 10 0000 0000

contact@example.com

Bank: Example Bank, Account holder: Example Studio Co., Ltd. Please send me a message after you transfer, quoting your order number.

Only store public business details like these. Never save passwords, PINs or full card numbers.

Replies to common situations

I have received your message and I am looking into it. I will reply within one business day.

I am sorry for the inconvenience. We are checking what happened and will come back to you with a solution as soon as possible.

Our opening hours are Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 18:00. We are closed on weekends and public holidays.

Scheduling and follow-up

Could we meet on [date] at [time]? It should take about 30 minutes. Please tell me if another time suits you better.

I am following up on my earlier message. Could you let me know where things stand? Thank you in advance.

I am confirming our appointment on [date] at [time]. Please reply to let me know if anything changes.

Please find the file attached. If you have trouble opening it, tell me and I will send it in a different format.

The complete list at a glance

• /hi: greeting
• /bye: closing
• /thx: thank you
• /addr: address
• /tel: phone number
• /mail: email address
• /bank: payment details
• /wait: received, looking into it
• /sorry: apology
• /hours: opening hours
• /meet: meeting request
• /follow: gentle follow-up
• /confirm: appointment confirmation
• /attach: file attached
• /sig: email signature

Making them your own

The examples are intentionally plain. Rewrite each one the way you would actually say it. A snippet that sounds like you is more useful than a perfect one that sounds like a stranger. Where a snippet needs a detail that changes, such as a date, put it in square brackets and fill it in after the text appears.

Check the triggers against a few simple rules: short, memorable, and each one starting with your prefix. If two triggers start with the same letters, such as /meet and /meeting, you may expand the wrong one by accident. Give them distinct stems instead. The guide on good triggers explains this in more detail.

Notice how many of these contain no private information at all. That is deliberate. Good snippets are polite and generic enough that a stranger could read them over your shoulder without harm. Anything that needs real secrecy, such as a password, belongs somewhere else. Likewise, keep phrases that you only use for one customer out of the general list; put them in a folder of their own so that the picker does not fill up with rare items.

What to do next

Start with five. Use them for three days and watch how often you reach for each. Add the next five only when the first ones feel natural. After a week, look at which snippets you never used and delete them, since a small library is easier to remember than a large one. If you forget a trigger, press Ctrl+Shift+Space to open the picker and search for a word from the text.

Pine Shortcut is free and ad-free for one PC with up to 5 snippets, and Pro at $9.99 per year adds unlimited snippets, sync and more devices. Whichever plan you use, these fifteen phrases are a sensible starting point: they cover greetings, details, replies and follow-ups, which together make up a large share of what most people write.