Quick Actions

Select text in any app, press a shortcut, and Tinycast works on it. Depending on the action, the result either replaces your selection or appears first in a small floating panel.

Turn it on in Settings → Quick Actions → Enable Quick Actions. It's off by default. When you turn it on, Tinycast explains what the feature does and asks for Accessibility, which it needs to read your selection and type the result back.

While it's off, Tinycast doesn't read any selection or call any model, and every Quick Action shortcut does nothing.

The four built-in actions

Each action has its own launcher command and global shortcut, both set in Settings → Quick Actions.

• Fix Grammar replaces the text right away, because it only corrects mistakes.
• Rewrite changes your wording, so it shows you the result first.
• Summarize produces something new about your text, so it never replaces your text unless you choose to.

Use the menu next to each action to choose Replace or Preview.

Running one

Press the action's shortcut, or type its name in the launcher. When you run it from the launcher, the palette closes first, so the action works on the app behind it instead of Tinycast's search field.

Replace

The result goes straight into your document. To revert it, use undo in that app.

While the model works, a message like Fixing Grammar… shows a spinner. Click it to cancel.

Preview

A panel shows the result as it comes in. For Fix Grammar and Rewrite, it highlights what changed. Summarize and your own actions show their result formatted as Markdown, and you can select text across all of it. Copy and Replace use the text as the model wrote it.

Clicking outside the panel also closes it.

If the replacement fails, for example because the app doesn't accept it, Tinycast copies the result to your clipboard and tells you, so you never lose the text.

Your own Quick Actions

Add Quick Action creates a new action from a name, an icon and a prompt. Like the four built-in actions, it gets a launcher row, a shortcut and an alias.

Custom actions show their result in a panel by default. If you trust the prompt, switch it to Replace. Tinycast can't tell whether a prompt edits your text or answers a question about it, so it doesn't decide for you.

Click the pencil button to edit an action. Deleting one asks for confirmation, then frees its shortcut.

Changing a built-in prompt

Click the pencil next to Fix Grammar, Rewrite or Summarize to see the exact prompt Tinycast uses. If you change it, the action uses your version. Use Default restores the original.

Translate has no prompt, because it doesn't use a language model.

Your selection is always treated as text to work on, never as instructions. Custom prompts can't turn off this protection, because the result is pasted into your document.

Choosing a model

Settings → Quick Actions → Model is separate from AI Chat's model, so a shortcut you use all day doesn't have to call a paid API every time. It defaults to Apple Intelligence, which runs on your Mac for free, and falls back to the chat model when Apple Intelligence isn't available.

It offers the same models as AI Chat, including reasoning effort where the model supports it.

A model for one action

Every action except Translate can use its own model. Click the action's pencil button and choose a model and reasoning effort under Model. For example, a quick grammar fix can use a fast model while a demanding custom prompt uses a more capable one.

Same as Quick Actions uses the shared model. An action with its own model shows the model's name under its own. If you remove that model's connection or turn its provider off, the action goes back to the shared model.

Translate

Translate uses Apple's translator on your Mac. It's free and doesn't send anything to a provider.

Translate to sets the language. The default is Same as this Mac. The list comes from Apple, not from your preferred languages, so it only includes languages the translator supports. Bengali, for example, isn't available yet.

The first time you translate into a new language, the panel opens and says the language hasn't been downloaded yet, even if Translate is set to Replace. Click Open Language & Region, then Translation Languages…, and download it there. While the panel is open, you can also translate into a different language.

When an action won't run

• In Tinycast's own windows. Pressing a shortcut while Settings is in front does nothing, and Tinycast tells you why. Notes is the exception: Quick Actions work on text you select in a note.
• In a password field, or anywhere Secure Event Input is on.
• While another Quick Action is still running. Actions run one at a time, so two can't change the same selection.
• Without Accessibility. A message explains what's missing.

How the selection is read

Tinycast first asks the app for the selected text through Accessibility. Chrome, Electron apps and VS Code need an extra request first, because they only share their selection once something asks for it.

If that doesn't work, Tinycast briefly copies the selection with ⌘C, reads it, and restores your clipboard. If nothing is selected, it tells you instead of using whatever you copied last.

Backups

No Quick Actions settings are included in backups: not the switch, the models, the Replace or Preview choices, custom prompts, the language or your custom actions. Importing a backup should never change what a shortcut does to your documents.