Shortcuts

Save trigger words that expand into longer phrases anywhere on macOS — perfect for email signatures, addresses, and anything you type often.

Shortcuts let you save a short trigger that expands into a longer phrase whenever you dictate. Say /sig and Epilude types your full signature. Say "office address" and Epilude types the full street address.

Shortcut expansion runs on every dictation, in any app, no matter which Cleanup level you pick.

How shortcuts work

Each shortcut has two parts:

  • Trigger — the word or short phrase you say
  • Expansion — the text Epilude inserts in its place

After Epilude transcribes what you said, it checks whether the whole transcript matches one of your triggers. If it does, the trigger is replaced with its expansion before the text reaches your text field. Matching is case-insensitive and ignores surrounding whitespace and trailing punctuation, so "my email." (with a period added by Smart Formatting) still expands.

Triggers fire on their own

Shortcuts only expand when the trigger is the entire dictation, not when the same phrase appears inside a longer sentence. To use a shortcut, press your hotkey, say only the trigger, and release.

Spoken triggers

Speak the trigger out loud the same way you'd type it. For triggers that start with a slash like /sig, say "slash sig". For multi-word triggers like "office address", just say the words.

Adding a shortcut

Open Shortcuts

Open Epilude and click Shortcuts in the sidebar.

Click Add shortcut

Click the Add shortcut button in the top-right of the page.

Enter a trigger and expansion

Pick a short, distinctive trigger you wouldn't say by accident (/sig, /cta, "office address"). Type the full expansion you want Epilude to insert in its place. Multi-line expansions are supported.

Save and try it

Save the shortcut, then dictate the trigger into any text field. Epilude expands it the moment your transcript is inserted.

Managing your shortcuts

The Shortcuts page lists every shortcut you've saved, with search at the top. Click any shortcut to edit its trigger or expansion. Click the trash icon to delete it — there's a short window to undo if you remove the wrong one.

The master toggle at the top of the page pauses every expansion at once without deleting your shortcuts. Useful when you want raw transcripts for a session.

Tips for good triggers

  • Pick something you wouldn't say as a complete dictation by accident. "My intro", "office address", and "my email" are short, memorable, and unlikely to be the only thing you ever say in one go.
  • Keep multi-word triggers short ("office address" is better than "my full office address please") — easier to remember and faster to say.
  • Slash prefixes are still fine (/sig, /cta) if you prefer them, but no longer required to avoid collisions.
  • Use shortcuts for anything you repeat: email signatures, common replies, addresses, phone numbers, project names, code blocks.

What shortcuts won't do

  • They won't run AI rewrites. The trigger is replaced verbatim with the expansion. AI-driven on-the-fly rewrites will be possible once Actions ships.
  • They won't expand outside of dictation. Shortcuts only fire on text Epilude is processing. They don't replace text you type with your keyboard.

Troubleshooting

  • My trigger isn't expanding. Shortcuts only fire when the trigger is the entire dictation. Say only the trigger, then release. If you spoke other words in the same dictation, nothing expands. Also confirm shortcuts are enabled at the top of the page and check Epilude's transcript log to see what was actually transcribed.
  • The expansion looks slightly different in the LLM rewrite. At Cleanup levels Light, Medium, or High, the AI sees the expanded text and may adjust capitalization or punctuation to fit the Tone Match you picked. Switch Cleanup to None for a verbatim insert.
  • Dictionary — Teach Epilude how to spell names, acronyms, and jargon
  • Cleanup — Choose how much Epilude rewrites your dictations
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