This is probably the most 2025 question ever. Like many I continue to use LLMs for:
Brainstorming
Feedback on articles for what I didn’t cover
Editing suggestions (I still type all of the words)
Suggestions for Images to illustrate abstract ideas
Splitting longer posts into Mastodon sized chunks
…
I use mutliple tools: BoltAI; Obsidian Copilot and sometimes Google Notebook
This means I have an ever growing list of text fragments, currently I keep them in Obsidian note. However its a hassle: Open the LLM Prompts note; Find the specific prompt; Sometimes edit it; Copy to the LLM tool.
What are other people using to manage this mess?
I have Alfred and also SetApp in my arsenal. I’ve considered:
RocketTypist - however it means I would need to remember a growing list of shortcodes to get the right prompt. Also RocketTypists editor isn’t inviting.
SnippetsLab - might be good, I can’t tell if it is maintained
Alfred Text Snippets - halfway between RocketTypist and SnippetsManager
What approach/app are you using? What else should I consider?
Lost in a sea of text.
SnippetsLab does seem nice for that purpose. And looking at the release notes, does seem to be being maintained and improved (new features like the quick access bar 2 months ago, a more minor update a month ago, and no obvious dead zones over the years).
+1 for Alfred snippets. I use it to store After Effects expressions so kind of the same principle as “machine instructions”. And I use the auto expand feature so my most frequently used expressions are a quick keyword away. I even have a few triggered from the Alfred remote app on my iPad.
The snippet viewer thing is super handy, I have different groups of snippets so I can get to that group and then search that group.
I hadn’t even tried AI until Google added Gemini to my Google Workspace paid account. Since I use it almost exclusively on iPhone and iPad, I will probably use Google Keep.
I switched away from Rocket Typist after trying it for a while, but I seem to recall you could assign a single shortcut to a group of snippets, which would call up a list of available snippets. So perhaps you could put your AI snippets in a group and remember just one keystroke. Or, have them all start with the same prefix and use the search hotkey, type a few keys, and you’d narrow down to your AI snippets.
Use Alfred Snippets. You could also get Typinator as it allows more customization for a text snippet. Like opening a user input box and those fields are injected into you base snippet.
I’ve been using SnippetsLab for this for about a year. I like that I can organize by folder, subfolder, tag. etc. It works well and seems to be a solid app.
Thanks - I tried SnippetsLab. On two occasions I’ve sent them a support email and got no response. Perhaps not quite dead, but awfully close from my viewpoint.
It’s interesting, a week later and I’m still on the fence. Missing from all these, version control. The content of my prompts are changing rapidly. I really would like to add version control, so I don’t worry when I make changes to snippets. (Irony, I’ve been using Obsidian until now, it has version control)
As it stands, I feel like I’m halfway between:
Alfred - my fingers know to launch it in heartbeat
RocketTypist - which has more features that I realized
SnippetsLab used to be paid software, but it became free a few months ago. I wonder if this has anything to do with the lack of response? Anyways, in the FAQ, it says (and in bold) “SnippetsLab will continue to receive updates, with no changes to the development roadmap.”
For text expansion, I switched from TextExpander to Typinator last year. I think I should have tried text expansion in Alfred before doing so, as, like you, “my fingers know to launch it in heartbeat.” So I could also see it being useful for prompts.
I’ve also considered using Drafts (and it does have version control), which also has the benefit of being cross-platform. There’s also a robust Alfred workflow for Drafts, Doctor Drafts, that would allow you to copy text from Drafts notes via Alfred.