![]() Therefore, one has to be careful toĮxclude all applications where passwords and other sensitive If you do that oftenĮnough and you have snippet suggestion turned on, then your passwordīecomes a suggested snippet. String, one that happens to be your password. Of excluded apps, TextExpander will take note that you typed a certain Password in the terminal, unless your terminal emulator is in the list Remote server via SSH on the command line. Specifically written for OS X and hence does not flag secure textĮntry in the way that OS X recognizes. TheseĪpplications can run arbitrary, cross-platform code that is not Or iTerm 2, or a programmable text editor like Emacs. Consider a terminal emulator like Terminal In other cases, it’s nearly impossible for OS X to know when secure Applications such as 1PasswordĪnd Safari (for properly written web forms) have no problem properly What you type in those fields and therefore it could not feasibly The operating system won’t allow TextExpander to see Developers can flag certain textįields for secure text input (e.g., password fields that don’t display To understand why TextExpander was able to see my passwords in theįirst place, it helps to know a little more about how text input in a Up to suggest that I add one of my important, paranoia-grade passwordsĪs a snippet, but at least they weren’t being stored in plain text I admit to being slightly terrified every time a notification popped Still managed to occasionally suggest a passwords as new snippets. Potentially sensitive text, like passwords. There are measures in place to prevent TextExpander from storing Insecure Text Input and Snippet Suggestion Only kept the information in memory and that nothing would be stored If TextExpander only keeps an encoded record of what I typeĪnd that record doesn’t persist across restarts, then I assumed it Might type “yourpetsname” but what TextExpander sees and records isĪfter reading this, I was fully reassured about any potential security Is securely stored so that no one reading it knows what it is. “hash”) of that group of characters, similar to the way a password Instead, it keeps an encoded record (called a “Tracking” does not mean TextExpander keeps a list of the actualĬharacters you type. None of what you type is saved by TextExpander exceptįor the snippets listed in the Suggested snippets group. ![]() Therefore,įrequent restarting of TextExpander won’t result in many So the tracking is lost with each TextExpander restart. However, it does not save the tracking of what you type TextExpander will track how many times you repeat the same group ofĬharacters and create a new suggestion after a certain amount of TextExpander observes your keystrokes, as well as the contents of Privacy and security concerns, which are addressed as follows in the New snippets based on things you frequently type. In TextExpander 5.0, released in May 2015, Smile added a new featureĬalled “Suggestions” whereby TextExpander will automatically suggest Snippet Suggestion TextExpander 5.x Preferences: Snippet Suggestion ![]() TextExpander is one of a core set of utilities that I install on every More advanced snippetsĬan include date and time arithmetic, scripts, fill-in forms withĭrop-down menus and optional sections, etc. This is only a basic description the program. Watches what you type and when an abbreviation is noticed itĪutomatically replaces the abbreviation with the content, provided A TextExpander “snippet” consists of an abbreviation,Ĭontent (the full-text associated with the abbreviation), and rulesĪbout how and when the abbreviation can be used. That allows one to define short abbreviations for longer words and TextExpander from Smile is a Mac (and iOS) application More below for additional background, suggested configuration changes,Īnd details on how to remove any such sensitive information that may They kindly clarified theīehavior and indicated that they will consider updating theĭocumentation or adding an FAQ entry to address these points. Support about this, since I thought it must be a bug or an oversight Propagate to the cloud and other devices. This may seem harmless, but if notĬonfigured carefully to exclude certain apps (e.g., Terminal, iTerm 2,Įmacs) then TextExpander may unintentionally save passwords you typeĪs suggested snippets, which then are stored in plain text and will This mayīe unexpected given the current wording of the “Privacy Details” Text and synchronize to the cloud and other devices in kind. Suggested snippets in TextExpander 5.0 and 5.1 are stored in plain On the Security Implications of Suggested Snippets in TextExpander
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