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💅 Inline AI rewrites anywhere on macOS

9 starsSwift

Global macOS shortcut that rewrites selected text anywhere with AI

by matthewtoast·Feb 19, 2026·2 points·1 comment

AI Analysis

●●SolidSolve My ProblemNiche Gem
The Take

It uses macOS Accessibility hooks and a global hotkey to send your selection to OpenAI/Anthropic/OpenRouter and replace it inline — no copy/paste or separate chat window. Clever, focused UX choices (BYO API key in Keychain, optional trigger mode) make it immediately useful for flow-based writing, but it isn’t novel technology and privacy depends on your chosen provider; local model support is still missing.

Category
Target Audience

Writers, editors, macOS power users, and anyone who does a lot of in‑place text editing and wants quick LLM-powered rewrites

Post Description

I built Spackle, a small macOS menu bar app that rewrites text inline in any app using your LLM of choice. Highlight text, press a keyboard shortcut, and the selected text gets replaced in place — Mail, Notes, Slack, Messages, Keynote, PowerPoint, Gmail (any text field), text editors, etc. No copy/paste or separate chat window.

You just: - Select text - Hit a hotkey (default ⌘⌥⌃I) - Spackle sends the selection to your configured model

And the rewritten text replaces your selection It’s bring-your-own API key and supports OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter. No local model support (yet...PRs open).

I made this because I wanted something closer to a universal "rewrite shortcut" for macOS. When I get into a flow with writing I don't always want to jump into a separate context, and this makes it easy to get quick rewrites or LLM completions in just about any text field in any app across macOS.

Would love feedback, especially on: - UX friction - Rewrite quality expectations (the prompt could be improved, but you know, ship early) - Other workflows this could support

Repo: https://github.com/tsortwehttam/spackle

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Turning any selected text into an instant AI edit with a single hotkey is a small UX idea that pays off — no more tab-switching or clipboard juggling. The BYO API key and customizable prompts/hotkeys are thoughtful: this keeps control (and costs) in your hands. It's not revolutionary — macOS already has a handful of similar utilities — but if the native accessibility hooks are robust and privacy is clear, this is exactly the kind of convenience tool people will use daily.

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