{"type":"blog","id":"2026/typeboost","title":"Is TypeBoost the AI personal assistant you've been looking for?","url":"/blog/2026/typeboost","summary":"TypeBoost is an AI personal assistant that helps boost writing productivity by allowing you to apply prompts to text in any application. In this post, I test the tool to see how well it performs and how much it improves my productivity.","date":"2026-03-17","tags":["AI","Productivity","macOS","Assistant"],"categories":["tech"],"body":"[TypeBoost](https://www.typeboost.ai/) is one of a growing number of tools that use AI to boost writing productivity. Select text in any application, hit a keyboard shortcut, and apply a prompt, such as making text more formal, translating it, or shortening it, directly in place. It supports voice input as well as text, and claims to work system-wide across any text field.\n\nIn this post, I put it through its paces to see how well it performs and how much it improves my productivity.\n\n## How does TypeBoost work?\n\nTypeBoost sits in your macOS menu bar and activates via a global keyboard shortcut. Select some text, press *Control + Space*, and a small prompt picker appears. Choose a prompt, and TypeBoost sends your text to an AI model, then replaces the selected text with the result.\n\nIt ships with a range of default prompts, including options for grammar fixing, making text more formal, translating to other languages, creating LinkedIn posts, and a few developer-oriented ones like writing Git commit messages. You can also create your own custom prompts, and share these across devices via cloud sync.\n\nBeneath the surface, TypeBoost passes your text and a system prompt to an external AI model. Older tools did similar things when they first appeared, and other applications have since absorbed most of those features. This pits TypeBoost against some stiff competition.\n\n## Installation and setup\n\nOn first launch, TypeBoost walks you through permissions. You need to grant microphone access, accessibility access, and automation access. These are generally standard requirements for any tool that interacts with other applications.\n\nThe default shortcut is *Control + Space*, which conflicts with some common system shortcuts. You can change it in settings.\n\nUnfortunately, TypeBoost is an Electron app. This means it could consume more resources than a native app, and it doesn't integrate with other macOS APIs and features well.\n\n## Testing it out\n\n### Text manipulation in a browser\n\nI tried selecting some text in a web browser and triggering the prompt picker. The picker appeared correctly, and I chose to polish it as a LinkedIn post. The transformed text appeared in the TypeBoost panel, but clicking to replace the text did nothing. Web browsers don't allow accessibility tools to replace text in most fields, so this is a known limitation rather than a bug.\n\nThe workaround is copying the result manually. That works, but it removes some appeal of an inline tool.\n\n### Text manipulation in Obsidian\n\nThe next test used [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/), also an Electron app, which makes it an interesting case. I selected a chunk of notes and triggered TypeBoost. This time, text replacement worked. I tried the voice brain dump to structure prompt on a rambling list of ideas. The result was reasonable, though it condensed rather aggressively.\n\nI also tried working with a file that contained images mixed in with text. TypeBoost handled the text portions correctly and ignored the images, which I guess makes sense.\n\n### Translating in Apple Notes\n\nI selected a note I'd written some time ago and tried translating it to German. The translation replaced my note text successfully, and then I translated it back to check accuracy. The result was close to the original, with some minor phrasing differences. TypeBoost correctly preserved some German-language terms I had in the original text.\n\n### Voice mode\n\nVoice mode is the most interesting part of TypeBoost. Instead of selecting existing text, you speak directly to the app. I tried a short voice input describing what I was testing, and the app transcribed and processed it into a coherent paragraph. The result was shorter than what I'd spoken, but the meaning carried through.\n\nVoice input switches between text manipulation and a more direct capture mode, which is useful for capturing ideas without typing.\n\n## Limitations\n\nThe Electron foundation has a real impact on the experience. Features like macOS services and sharing, which many Mac-native apps expose for similar text manipulation tasks, can work in Electron apps, but often aren't added. The prompt picker panel also looks and behaves like a web interface rather than a native macOS popover, which is noticeable, but I acknowledge it's a \"me problem\".\n\nThe prompt selection list is small and needs to be taller. With more prompts loaded, scrolling through them becomes fiddly.\n\nText replacement in web browsers doesn't work. That's a platform limitation, but worth knowing before assuming TypeBoost works \"everywhere.\"\n\nThere's no offline mode. Every action goes out to an external AI model, which means credits and an internet connection are always required.\n\n## Pricing\n\nThe free plan includes a one-time allocation of 50,000 credits and 10 minutes of voice mode. The Pro plan is $8 per month (or $96 billed annually). It includes 1 million credits per month, 180 minutes of voice mode, and access to many model providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. An enterprise tier with shared team prompts is available at a custom price.\n\nThe credit model maps to API usage costs. How far your credits go depends on the length of your texts and how often you use the tool.\n\n## Other options\n\nIf you already use [Raycast](https://go.chrischinchilla.com/raycast), it has AI prompt features that integrate well with macOS. PopClip is another Mac-native and extensible option, with AI actions available. MacWhisper handles voice-to-text more directly. macOS itself exposes text services that some apps can use, though these are inconsistent across applications.\n\nTypeBoost's advantage is its cross-platform focus. If you work across Mac and iOS and want prompts to sync, it handles that cleanly.\n\n## Should you use TypeBoost?\n\nTypeBoost does what it says. The core idea, applying saved AI prompts to selected text with a keyboard shortcut, works, and voice mode adds a useful capture option. The prompt customisation is straightforward, and the default prompt library covers common use cases.\n\nThe Electron foundation is a real trade-off. You get cross-platform consistency but lose Mac-native integration. If that doesn't bother you, TypeBoost is worth trying. The free plan gives you enough credits to test it without committing.\n\nIf you prefer Mac-native tools, Raycast or PopClip suit you better. If you're cross-platform or just want something simple to set up and use, TypeBoost is a solid choice.","links":[],"fields":{"youtubeId":"IjAObCPYqNw"},"videos":[{"id":"IjAObCPYqNw","role":"primary","title":"Is TypeBoost the AI personal assistant you've been looking for?","watchUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjAObCPYqNw","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/IjAObCPYqNw","uploadDate":"2026-03-09T09:24:10Z","duration":"PT12M10S","chapters":[{"start":0,"label":"Intro"},{"start":55,"label":"What is Typeboost"},{"start":110,"label":"Installation and setup"},{"start":193,"label":"Testing Typeboost"},{"start":272,"label":"Typeboost settings"},{"start":338,"label":"Trying Typeboost in different apps"},{"start":613,"label":"Summary"}],"transcript":{"source":"auto-generated","text":"Type boost is another in a wide plethora now of tools that use AI to increase productivity to to do all sorts of things. But in type boost case, this is a productivity boost. It lets you input audio and text and then using a series of customized prompts and it ships with a bunch by default. You can take that input and manipulate it in different ways. It's crossplatform. It's systemwide. It can access almost any text field. And in this video, I take a quick look. I am Christian Chiller and in 2026, I am starting this new series of short 5 to 10 minutes, it depends on the tool, videos where I'll go from step one to trying to do something useful with the tool with no prior knowledge. So, there will be bumps along the way. Today is the turn of Typoost. Let's get stuck in. So, this the website typboost.ai AI. Um, it's trusted by a lot of people apparently. Got AI command pallet. Sort of trying to understand quite what it is. I'm not completely sure, but I've downloaded the application. They very nicely gave me a bunch of credits as you can see here that apparently I've used some. Don't quite understand how I haven't done anything yet, but there we go. But I've opened the documentation page here as well to just sort of I don't know. I find that description a little bit unclear. I sort of want to know what I can do with it. It lurks up here. Doesn't do a tremendous amount. And I have some bad news. Unfortunately, it is an electron application. I don't like electron applications very much, but there we go. All right. So, what do we do? Apparently, it works anywhere. Select text. Oh, lord. I'm I need AI for my voice today. Select text in any desktop app. Hit your shortcut. I don't know what my shortcut is, but let's carry on. There we go. Allow microphone access. Sure. Allow accessibility access. The classics. There we go. And I think we're done. Allow automation access. Sure. I think that there we go. All right. So, there it was. Create your personal prompt toolkit. Shorten text. Sure. Pass the formula. I don't know what that means. Make it formal. Can I add more? Um, yeah, I'd like to do that as well. Translation to German. That's quite helpful. A lot of this is built into the operating system. Quick capture to do. I actually have some custom shortcuts set up for these. I'll show you. actually set to go to obsidian. Yeah, create idea. Not going to that right now. Maybe that's another time. Voice brain dump to structure. So these are the sorts of things I actually do want, but whether it will put them into the applications I want is uh Oh, reax. Love it. Create your toolkit. Okay. Control space. Now control space is not a good shortcut. I think I have that. It is. Okay, it is set. I thought I had it set to something else. Maybe not. Select the text below. All right, so we get this popup. It would be nice if it was a popup menu instead. This shows you it's Electron app and not kind of a system app. So, there's the other ones there. All right, let's make it formal. Press it and give it a try. Okay, sure. All right, change a shortcut. I think it'll do for now. Continue to voice mode. Let's see how that's going to work. I will keep an eye on the video recording to see how well that's going to work. So, I'm making a video about type boost. I'm think I'm going to go through the steps of installing and setting up, seeing what it can do, and seeing if it can replace any of the other tools I already have. So, let's do that. So you can see it's connecting to an external service here. This is one problem. I guess it's not entirely what I would have expected, but it's fine. Okay. All right. So control space controll enter to think then for a second. Open settings. So here you can actually change some of the prompts. So the type I mean there's not going to be spelling grammarss in a voice prompt I suppose. And then the prompt here. So, in essence, it's all just a series of prompts. Actually, some early AI applications used to do similar things. I covered them in a video some time ago. I honestly cannot remember the names of them anymore, where it was just basically a series of of prompts that connected to OpenAI servers. Doing something slightly similar, but uh yeah, it's really what it is. We just have voice text all and then the prompt as far as I can see. Yeah. So that's basically what it is. All right. Well, let's see how it goes. Continue. Got it. Let's go. So apparently this is going to work in any application. Let's see about that. So what should we try? So, I was thinking of making a video on this, but I didn't in the end. So, let's select everything and we'll control space. There we go. I want to make this a LinkedIn polish LinkedIn post. It's quite long for a LinkedIn post. [laughter] And I've also got markdown format here, which I'm not sure if LinkedIn supports that. Let's see. And it's not going to replace text because this is a web browser. So, if I click that, nothing's really going to happen. Write an article. That's actually want it there. Yeah, it doesn't support markdown. So, that's not massively helpful. All right. What else could we try? an application I'm as you can see from some of those shortcuts I was showing you earlier I often like to use Obsidian which is nonnative is also electron so let's see I've had this sort of file I've been just slowly going through and adding lots of video ideas so I could really do there's images in here I mean I don't think it's going to handle the images but uh let's see I'd like to I'd like to figure out maybe it can get me some sort of structure from this that kind of thing. So, let's copy it and Crl Enter. Okay, that's still there, but it's obviously got a bunch of images here that it's not going to work with. I mean, we can just get rid of those. It would be nice if you could see this list like Oh, you can. It's a very small list. It could do with a being bigger list. I'd kind of like to capture an idea. Yeah, I mean, it's okay. So, if I replace the text, it does work. Let's try an Apple notes. Maybe I just know from some talks I've seen that notes has some strange ways it formats things. I'm trying to find something that's going to work here. Maybe this note I took ages ago about freelancing in Germany. Why not? Let's keep it open. So, it's taken the text already. Let me translate it to German. without going through this in any great detail. It's still going as well. [laughter] So, we'll replace the text. Yeah, it changed the formatting, but there we go. And maybe let's just out of interest translate it back from memory. I think that's about right. I mean the interesting thing is I had some German words in there. For example, trade business gverb. I think you can also see somewhere here I had some German originally. Yeah, I think this is here somewhere now. Yeah. So, I don't know. Insert below. Let's see if that works. No, that just added it back in. All right. So, I'm going to take it back to what it was. Stick to my original note. I think I feel like in some respects the the voice side of this might be the more interesting one. Let's go for some translation again, but we'll do it with audio this time. So, today I am making a video on a new AI tool called type boost. So far, it has some interesting ideas. I have seen these ideas in other applications, but the fact that you can switch between text mode and audio mode is quite interesting. But beneath the surface, it's just a series of prompts that you could use in other tools. Let's see. Yeah, that's that seems reasonable. I feel like I spoke more than that, but that's okay. [laughter] So, I mean, I think we've we get the idea here, really. It would be nice if it was a bit more system native. And I mean to be fair in Mac OS you can also get these sorts of things often in services and none of that will show up here because it's electron. So I think that's pretty much it. Where is type boost? It's running in the background. Set a shortcut. We did that. How to do it in any app. I mean you select the text it pops up. Again if it was actually in place that would be nice. Pick a prompt. It would be good if that selection was a little longer and then basically do it and that's that's it. So yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of tools like this at the moment. I kind of feel like it could be more system integrated. I think Raycast adds some features like this and that is a little bit more system native. You could trigger some shortcuts using the new spotlight and do things like this too. There's tools like pop clip. There's tools like Mac Whisper. There's a lot of tools that now do this, but it's Electron. It's crossplatform. I am fussy about my Mac apps. So, there we go. I'm not necessarily going to like an application that is not as completely system integrated as it says, but it does actually capture all the text from everywhere. So, that is certainly correct. Let's have maybe a quick look at pricing. So 1 million characters per month, 30 total prompts, 20 active prompts is $5 a month. Even the free plan is a fair bit. I think the pricing is relatively comparable to some similar tools. And if you go through API calls and things like that, this is basically how you're charged. And that was tight boost. Hard to say if it's something I'm going to stick with. I think I have a lot of other tools that do similar things, but maybe it appeals to you, especially that cross-platform nature if you are used to that that world. I tend to prefer my tools more Mac native. So, that's where my preferences lie. But it's simple to use, it's simple to customize. If it appeals to you, then take a look at typostoost.ai. I have been Christian Chiller in this new video series for 2026 where I go hands-on from square one with a tool or a service. If you enjoyed what you saw, you can find more about me at christristianchilla.com or of course click any of the links below the video. Liking, sharing, leaving a comment, subscribing, everything is appreciated. See you next time."}}]}