Great news! TextExpander 8.4.1 is now available, and it brings custom date formats to the Date Picker Fill-in, giving you complete control over how dates expand in your Snippets.
What’s new in 8.4.1
You can now create custom date formats using tokens like YYYY (year), MM (month), and DD (day) to format dates exactly how your organization, industry, or workflow requires. With custom date formats, you can create formats like Jan 21, 2026, 2026.01.21, or "Wednesday, January 21st.
If you’re manually typing dates after your Snippets expand or using date placeholders that you replace later, add the Date Picker! No more typos or manual reformatting, just consistent dates that expand correctly every time.
Update your app to get started
Make sure you’re using the latest version of the TextExpander app (8.4.1+ that released this week) to use custom date formats. Here’s how to update:
Open TextExpander and go to Preferences
Select Updates
Click “Check for Updates” and install 8.4.1
After installation, click “Install and Relaunch”
How to use custom date formats
Open an existing Snippet that includes a placeholder for a date or create a new Snippet
Add the Date Picker fill-in from the Fill-ins menu
Select “Custom Format” from the “Date Format” dropdown
Use custom format tokens to create your preferred date style. You can click on the help icon for a list of custom format tokens.
You can also include any text in your date format by wrapping it in [square brackets]. This tells TextExpander to treat it as literal text rather than formatting code. For example, [Q]Q YYYY will output as “Q1 2026.”
And for teams that work across regions, you can use localized format tokens (L, LL, l, ll) that automatically adapt to match language and regional preferences.
What custom date formats are you planning to use? Share your setup below!
Great question! The easiest way is to use one of the preset locale-aware date formats, which automatically adjust based on your system’s language and region settings.
To use a locale-aware preset:
Add a Date Picker Fill-in to your Snippet or edit an existing Date Picker Fill-in
Choose one of these locale-aware formats from the Date Format dropdown:
Jan 31, 2025
January 31, 2025
Friday, January 31, 2025
1/31/2025
01/31/2025
These will automatically display in your local language and format. For example, “January 31, 2025” will show as “31 janvier 2025” if your system is set to French.
For more customization, you can also create custom localized formats:
Select “Custom Format” from the Date Format dropdown
Use one of these localized tokens:
L – Localized numeric date (e.g., 01/21/2026 in English, 21/01/2026 in French)
LL – Localized long date (e.g., January 21, 2026 in English, 21 janvier 2026 in French)
l – Localized short numeric date (e.g., 1/21/2026 in English, 21/1/2026 in French)
ll – Localized medium date (e.g., Jan 21, 2026 in English, 21 janv. 2026 in French)
Hi @AmandaEdson! Thanks for your question. 8.4.1 specifically fixes a crash when opening Inline Search in Google Docs within Safari on macOS. If you’ve been experiencing a different issue with Inline Search, could you please provide details on how it’s not working for you so we can look into it?
@alisa interesting ok I have an issue on Window 11 OS that the inline search doesn’t work anywhere I have tried Outlook, Chrome, Word, Edge, PPT, SFDC in Chrome. The search pops up but when I type in there nothing happens the cursor just stay put and no text appears until I click out the box. I just have to look up the abbreviation in the app if I have not memorized it. It was really a useful addition so I was sad when it broke on the last update. I can try uninstalling and reinstalling I think and will report back.
uninstalling and reinstalling did not fix it either. I thought maybe it was because i adjusted my hotkey for it so i set it back to default but still no luck. It it tough to get a screenshot of as well.
@AmandaEdson I had the same problem on another computer and got used to using a different version of the inline search. I had issues with CTRL+/, it would appear, but I couldn’t actually type anything. I started using CTRL+SHIFT+/ and it has ALWAYS worked for me, and I actually prefer it now because of the extra shortcuts on the bottom of that popup.
Hope that helps if you didn’t know about it yet =)
Version 8.4.1 has, on my Mac at least, introduced a significant delay before I can type into a text field. As an example, I have a shortcut that creates an email subject line for sending invoices and the shortcut pops up a fill in where I put the last 4 digits of the invoice number.
Before this update, I could type in my shortcut, see the pop up appear and then immediately type in the 4 digits. After the update, there’s a delay of around 2 seconds before I can type, which doesn’t sound a lot but when you’re used to just being able to type as soon as the pop up appears, it makes a big difference and I now regularly miss the first digit I’m typing as I forget about the delay.
Just wondered if this was a bug that anyone else was having or whether it’s intended to be like this?
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