Writing styles that actually follow your instructions.
Describe any voice in plain English, from Professional to Pirate, and suggestions follow it. Give each app its own: Professional in Mail, Concise in Slack.
“Sounds good”, finished in each app’s style: Mail, Professional: Sounds good, thank you. Messages, Friendly: Sounds good! Can’t wait. Slack, Concise: Sounds good. On it. WhatsApp, General: Sounds good, see you there.
Set it once per app.
Pick a style, give each app its own, then just type. It switches as you do.
The built-in writing styles: General (the default), Professional, Friendly and Concise.
Pick a style.
Start with General, Professional, Friendly or Concise, or make your own.
Settings, Apps: Mail uses Professional, Slack uses Concise.
Give each app one.
Mail gets Professional, Slack gets Concise. The rest use your default.
In Slack, with Concise: “Sounds good” gets the suggestion “. On it.”
Just type.
Move between apps and the suggestions change tone with you.
Write your own style.
Describe how you want to sound, the way you’d brief a colleague. Suggestions follow it, not just lean toward it.
A writing style of your own, “Client updates”, with the prompt “Short and warm. First names, no jargon.” Then, in Mail, “Quick update:” gets the suggestion “all on track for Friday.”
Any voice you can describe.
Pirate, Cowboy, Shakespeare. Ask for a voice and you get it, which is why the serious ones work too.
How styles work.
A few plain sentences, set per app, used by the model on your Mac.
Four to start. General, Professional, Friendly and Concise, ready to use.
Your own, in plain English. Describe a tone and suggestions follow it.
Follows the app you’re in. Each app keeps its style. No switching by hand.
Notes for each app. Extra guidance for one app, on top of its style.
Switch from the menu bar. Change an app’s style without opening Settings.
Its own timing and language. Each style can keep your defaults or set its own.
In detail.
The built-in styles, your own, and how they follow you.
The built-in styles.
General is your default, written for you from your Mac profile: your name, your language and the spelling for your region, with a warm, professional tone. Professional is clear and courteous, Friendly is warm and everyday, and Concise gets straight to the point. Edit any of them, and put General back to its original wording whenever you like.
Writing your own.
In Settings › Writing, New Style gives you a blank style with a name, an emoji and a color. Describe how you want to sound in a sentence or two. Each style can keep your default suggestion timing, length and language, or set its own, including one of 16 languages.
One style per app.
In Settings › Apps, pick an app and choose its style. Add Custom Instructions for anything that app needs, like keeping Slack on a first-name basis. The app’s submenu in Typeahead’s menu bar menu shows its style and lets you switch. The style shapes the same autocomplete suggestion in each of your Mac apps.
Common questions
Writing styles are short, plain-English instructions that Typeahead’s suggestions actually follow. Four come built in, General, Professional, Friendly and Concise, and you can write your own in any voice you can describe. Give each Mac app its own style and Typeahead switches as you move between apps, so Mail can sound formal while Messages stays relaxed.
Yes. In Settings › Writing, choose New Style, name it and describe how you want to sound in plain English, such as “Short and warm. First names, no jargon.” Suggestions follow it wherever that style is used.
Yes. Pick a style for an app in Settings › Apps, or from that app’s submenu in Typeahead’s menu bar menu. Apps without one use your default style.
Yes. Each style can follow the language you’re typing or stay in one of 16 languages, such as Spanish for one client. The languages page has the full list.
No. Typeahead only suggests how to finish what you’re typing, in the style you picked. Nothing you’ve written is rewritten, and you choose what to accept.
Yes, and that’s what sets Typeahead’s styles apart. Write “Talk like a pirate” and the suggestions come back in pirate. Write “Short and warm. First names, no jargon.” and they read that way too. The same goes for a brand voice, a house style or a client’s tone.