Beyond Basic Text Expansion: Why Privacy and Local AI Matter
Published July 3, 2026 ยท Updated July 3, 2026
Text expanders read everything you type. That's how they work: the tool watches for your shortcuts, which means it can see the rest too. The moment AI features enter the picture, the question gets concrete: what does your expander send to a server, and who can read it once it's there? Makro's answer is zero-knowledge encryption plus AI you can run entirely on your own machine.
How Makro compares to other text expanders
Text Blaze, Espanso, and Magical all do the core job well: shortcuts for phrases, snippets, and templates. They differ in where your snippets live and what their AI features send off your device. That difference is the whole reason to read on.
What Makro does differently
Zero-knowledge encryption
Your macros, hotwords, and personal data are encrypted on your device, with keys that never leave it. Makro's servers store encrypted blobs. Nobody at Makro can read a single hotword - if our database leaked tomorrow, your snippets would still be ciphertext.
Local AI
Smart Rewrite and Smart Translate rephrase, shorten, formalize, or translate your text. Point them at Ollama or LM Studio and the AI runs on your own machine; nothing goes to any cloud, ours included. Cloud processing is there when you want it, proxied through our servers. If you never want text leaving your device, switch on local-only mode and Makro holds you to it.
Pricing
- Free: $0 - Unlimited macros on one device, 25 cloud AI credits per month, free packs from the marketplace.
- Pro: $2.99 / month or $29.90 / year - Cloud sync across 2 devices, 500 AI credits/month, version history, semantic search, auto-backup.
- Premium: $5.99 / month or $59.90 / year - Everything in Pro, sync across 3 devices, 10,000 AI credits/month, priority support.
- Lifetime: $149 one-time - All Premium features, forever.
Choosing the right text expander
If all you need is shortcuts, any of the tools above will do the job. Pick Makro when the content of your snippets is sensitive: patient notes, legal boilerplate, a support inbox full of customer data. That is the case zero-knowledge encryption and local AI exist for.
The Free tier runs on one device with unlimited macros. Try it and see.