Where suggested words come from

Google Search suggests searches as you type; Chrome can fill an address field with your saved address. Both save typing, but they supply text from different places.

Autocomplete means assistance completing text you have begun. Suggestions are possible completions offered while you type. Related typing assistance can insert information you have already saved: a fixed snippet might expand ;thanks into Thanks for your help, while predictive text suggests the next words as you write a message. These behaviors overlap, so their names do not establish separate technologies.

For a project update, the useful distinction is where the offered wording comes from. Your work address belongs in stored form details. A standard sign-off belongs in a reusable snippet. The changing explanation of a deadline calls for wording that follows the sentence you have started.

Choose by what you want inserted#

The same act of entering a few characters can produce several kinds of help. Compare what you enter, where the offered text comes from, what appears and how you use it. Search suggestions, browser form filling and Excel cell completion provide background on typing terminology. The writing tools here insert reusable snippets or suggest sentence continuations.

• Search suggestions: You enter meeting agenda. Google uses signals including real searches, language, location, trending interest and past searches to offer possible queries. An invented example is meeting agenda template. Choose a suggestion to search for it. Google explains its query predictions.
• Form details: You select a saved work address in Chrome. The information comes from details stored in the browser, and address fields receive those values. This is useful when the task calls for your existing contact information. Chrome describes filling forms with saved information.
• Fixed snippets: You configure ;thanks to insert Thanks for your time today. The wording comes from text you saved in advance, and triggering the abbreviation inserts it. A snippet tool such as TextExpander inserts a saved sign-off when you trigger its abbreviation. Its advanced elements also include fill-ins and scripts, so snippets can extend beyond fixed wording.
• Sentence predictions: You enter Thanks for joining the meeting. A writing app might suggest this morning as a continuation; that wording is illustrative. Gmail Smart Compose uses machine learning to suggest wording during composition, and Tab accepts a suggestion.

A fixed phrase is useful when you already know the complete wording you want to reuse. A prediction fits a sentence whose details change with the message. For a closer look at that writing interaction, read about accepting sentence suggestions as you write.

Change the setting that owns the suggestion#

Form filling and query suggestions have separate controls. In Chrome, open Passwords and autofill to edit or delete saved entries, or disable the relevant Save and fill category. Those controls govern stored form details. They do not act as a switch for the different kinds of suggestions you might encounter in the browser.

Suggestions on google.com have their own controls for personalization and trending searches. Google provides settings for some search predictions and notes that those settings are being updated. Choose the control that corresponds to the behavior you want to change: stored information in a form or a suggested search query.

Excel offers another useful example of reusing existing text. Its cell completion feature matches the beginning of an entry already present in the same column. For illustration, entering Mar can match Marketing if that text already appears in the column. The offered value comes from your worksheet.

If that completion stops, first check that the feature is enabled and that the column contains a matching text entry. Numeric-only entries, dates and times are not completed by this feature. Microsoft’s Mac instructions for entering repeated values and series also distinguish cell completion from dragging the fill handle to copy cells or extend a series.

Try both choices at the cursor#

Typeahead completes sentences you start on your Mac. Use a message in Mail to try the interaction with wording you are already composing. The example below uses a project update so you can compare accepting a continuation with continuing to enter your own details.

1. Set up Typeahead on a Mac running macOS 14 or later and let the local model download before starting the writing exercise.
2. Open a message in Mail and begin a sentence, such as We’ll send the revised. Continue until your text reads: We’ll send the revised proposal.
3. When a suggestion appears at the cursor, press Tab to accept it. For this illustrative example, the suggested continuation is after our call. The accepted sentence reads: We’ll send the revised proposal after our call.
4. Continue writing until another suggestion appears, then keep typing to ignore it. To compare the branches using the same example, enter tomorrow morning after proposal instead, producing: We’ll send the revised proposal tomorrow morning.

After the model download, Typeahead generates suggestions locally on your Mac.

Compare the repeated closing with the explanation of what changed and when the revision will be ready.