Fix the tone before you hit send: an AI rewrite shortcut for Mac

There is a pause that happens right before you hit send.

The message is written. The facts are correct. But something feels off. It reads a little too casual. You apologized twice. There’s a sentence in there that runs for four lines without a single period. And you are fairly sure there’s a typo somewhere, though you have read it enough times that you can no longer see it.

That pause costs a few seconds each time. The trouble is how often it happens — emails, Slack replies, standup notes, meeting summaries, support responses, code review comments. On some days you spend more time checking whether a message is sendable than you spent writing it.

MacSide AI’s writing polish removes that pause. Select what you wrote, press a shortcut, and AI fixes the typos and the casual phrasing. The clean version lands on your clipboard, ready to paste. No AI tab to find, no copying back and forth, no prompt to write every time.

What it actually does, in three steps

Here is the whole interaction. A Gmail draft, typed the way people actually type when they’re in a hurry.

Here’s the before and after from the video:

Before

Hi, sorry but about tomorrow’s meeting, something came up and I was wondering if we could maybe move it to after 3pm or another day, sorry

After

Hi,

Apologies, but regarding tomorrow’s meeting, something has come up. Could we please move it to after 3:00 PM or reschedule to another day?

Thank you,

Look at what changed. sorry appeared twice and now appears once. I was wondering if we could maybe — three hedges stacked on top of each other — became a direct question. 3pm became 3:00 PM. The message picked up a greeting and a sign-off, so it reads as an email instead of a text message.

And look at what did not change. No new reason was invented for why the meeting has to move. No flattery was added. The request is the same request. Same content, sendable shape.

That restraint matters more than it sounds, because the most common failure of AI writing tools is adding things you never said.

The problem isn’t AI. It’s the round trip.

You can already do this with ChatGPT or Claude. Paste the text, ask for a more professional tone, get a result back. Nobody needs a new tool to make that possible.

The problem is the trip. Leave the compose window. Find the browser. Find the AI tab. Copy the text. Paste it. Type an instruction. Wait. Read the answer. Select the part you actually want, avoiding the “Here’s a polished version:” preamble. Copy it. Go back. Re-select your original. Paste.

That’s a dozen actions for one email. At thirty seconds a round trip and ten messages a day, you’re spending five minutes on it — but the wasted time is not the real cost.

The real cost is that you stop doing it. When the AI is twelve steps away, you start deciding that this particular message is fine as-is. You make that decision when you’re rushed, when you’re tired, and when the recipient is “just” a coworker. Which is exactly when the message needed a second look.

Three steps is a different category. At three steps there is no decision to make.

Four situations where it earns its keep

“Rewrite this professionally” sounds like it only changes vocabulary. In practice, what gets fixed is usually structure.

The external email that’s too familiar

Before

Thanks so much for the quote!! We talked about it internally and honestly the number is a bit higher than we were hoping, is there any wiggle room? Also if you could pull the timeline in a bit that would be amazing.

After

Thank you for sending the quote.

We’ve reviewed it internally, and the total is somewhat above the budget we had planned for. Would there be any flexibility on pricing?

Separately, we’d also like to ask whether the timeline could be moved up slightly.

The tone is the obvious change. The structural change is more useful: two different asks — price and timeline — were buried in one breathless paragraph. Now each one has its own space, so the reply can address both. Requests packed into a single paragraph get half-answered.

The Slack message that doesn’t read as a request

Before

hey sorry to bug you, whenever you get a sec could you maybe take a look at that bug from last week? no rush or anything but ideally before the release

After

Sorry to interrupt — could you take a look at the bug from last week when you have a moment?

No urgency, but it would be good to have it fixed before the release.

Slack messages rarely fail by being rude. They fail by being unreadable as tasks. whenever you get a sec, maybe, no rush or anything, and ideally all point in different directions, and the reader genuinely cannot tell whether this is on today’s list. Separating the ask from the deadline is the whole fix.

The standup note that’s just a list of verbs

Before

morning was meetings, then fixed up the deck, also poked at the login bug a bit. tomorrow more of the same

After

Spent the morning in meetings, then revised the deck. Also started looking into the login bug.

Tomorrow I’ll continue with the deck revisions.

Nothing here was impolite. It was just unreadable to anyone who isn’t you. poked at, a bit, and more of the same carry no information for a reader who wasn’t in your head that day.

The meeting notes you typed at 40 words per minute

Before

quote → due tues. design = option B confirmed. logo placement TBD, revisit. next sync 8/12 2pm

After

The quote is due next Tuesday. Design option B is confirmed, though the logo placement is still open and will be revisited. The next sync is on August 12 at 2:00 PM.

Dates and decisions survive intact; the shorthand becomes readable. Two minutes after a call, this turns “I’ll clean these up later” into a task that no longer exists.

Why it goes to your clipboard instead of replacing the text

Notice that the polished text doesn’t overwrite your selection automatically. It goes to the clipboard, a toast confirms it, and you paste it yourself.

That’s one extra keystroke, on purpose.

You stay in control of the result. If the rewrite replaced your text automatically, your original would be gone and undo would be your only way back. With the clipboard, nothing has happened yet. Read it, then decide. If you don’t like it, don’t paste it.

It works anywhere. Mail, Slack, Notion, a browser text field, a form, a code editor, a commit message. Anywhere you can select text. It isn’t a browser extension that only works in one browser, or a plugin that only works in one editor — so there’s no app where you suddenly can’t use it.

You can paste it somewhere else. Keep the raw version where it is and paste the polished one into a shared doc. Useful for notes you want to keep messy for yourself and clean for everyone else.

MacSide AI also keeps clipboard history, so a rewrite from ten minutes ago is still reachable if you need it again.

Polish, not personality transplant

The scariest thing about running your writing through AI is getting back something that doesn’t sound like you.

You know the output. Suddenly there are phrases like “I hope this message finds you well” and “please do not hesitate to reach out.” It’s twice as long. It’s warmer than you actually feel. It reads as polite and lands as generic — and worse, it sets an expectation you won’t meet the next time you talk to this person like a normal human.

Writing polish is meant to be polish. Fix the typo. Swap the phrasing that’s too casual for the room. Break the sentence that ran too long. Add the article you dropped. Then stop.

Go back to the example at the top. The rewrite kept the vagueness of “something has come up” instead of inventing a specific excuse. It kept the request as a request rather than an announcement. The uncertainty in your draft is information. A tool that smooths it away is telling the reader something you didn’t say.

How far it goes is your call

Everything above describes the default behavior: restraint. But the right amount of restraint isn’t the same every time. A proposal to a new client and a message to the developer sitting next to you want different results.

So the instruction the rewrite runs on — the prompt itself is yours to edit. The rules for how your writing gets changed are set by you, not by the tool.

Things worth setting:

• More formal. Drop the hedging entirely and commit to the statement.
• Less formal. Clean it up for internal chat without making it read like a contract.
• Typos and grammar only — leave every word choice exactly as written.
• Break up long sentences, but don’t touch the vocabulary.
• Always spell the company or product name a particular way.
• Leave internal shorthand and domain jargon alone.

Those last two are where general-purpose proofreaders struggle most. A tool that doesn’t know your team will helpfully expand the abbreviation everyone already understands, or flag the technical term you chose on purpose as unclear. When you write the instruction yourself, you get to declare what’s off-limits before it starts.

And once it’s set, it stays set. You’re not retyping “make this a bit more formal” on every email — you describe your own style rules once, and after that it’s just the shortcut.

It handles more than English

The same shortcut works on other languages. Japanese is a good stress test, because the gap between casual and business register is much wider than in English — the difference between すんません and 申し訳ございません isn’t a synonym swap, it’s a different relationship with the reader.

Before

今日の資料なんだけどまだ少しかかりそうで、たぶん夕方くらいには出せると思う、すんません

After

本日の資料ですが、まだ少しかかりそうです。
たぶん夕方くらいには提出できるかと思います。
申し訳ございません。

Same three steps, same clipboard. If you work across two languages in a day, you don’t switch tools when you switch languages.

How it compares to Grammarly — and what it costs

Grammarly is the reference point here, and it’s a good tool. Grammar, spelling, tone suggestions, plagiarism checking, live feedback as you type — if you write large volumes of English prose, it does things a shortcut does not. Grammarly Pro runs about $12/month billed annually, or $30/month billed monthly.

The difference is what each one is for. Grammarly is a writing assistant that lives with you continuously and suggests changes inline. MacSide AI’s writing polish is a single deliberate action you take on a finished draft, right before you send it. There’s no extension to install per browser and nothing watching what you type — you invoke it when you want it.

There’s also the price framing. Writing polish is one feature inside MacSide AI, not a product with its own subscription. MacSide AI Pro is $2.99/month at the current early price, or $59.99 as a one-time purchase, and the same app includes AI chat, ⌘C+C translation, clipboard management, OCR, screenshots, screen recording, image and video compression, Mac cleanup, and automatic time tracking. There’s a 7-day free trial with no credit card required.

For less than the cost of half a year of a dedicated writing subscription, you get a permanent license to all of it. If your job is producing polished long-form English prose, a dedicated tool still earns its subscription. If your job just involves sending a lot of messages you’d like to feel good about, this is the cheaper shape.

When it helps most

• Before sending an email to someone outside your company
• When a Slack message needs to read as an actual request
• Turning standup notes from a list of verbs into a readable update
• Converting shorthand meeting notes into something shareable
• Writing in a language that isn’t your first
• Late in the day, when you’ve stopped being able to see your own typos
• Any message to someone senior, where the register matters more than usual

Where it doesn’t help: restructuring a long article, developing an argument, or rewriting documentation. That’s work for a real conversation with an AI chat. Writing polish is for the one to five lines you’re about to send right now.

Frequently asked questions

Does it replace my text automatically?

No. The result goes to your clipboard and a toast confirms it. Your original stays untouched until you paste, so you always get to read the rewrite before committing to it.

Which apps does it work in?

Anywhere you can select text — browser text fields like Gmail, mail clients, chat apps, editors, forms. It isn’t tied to a specific browser or editor, so there’s no app where it stops working.

Can I control how much it rewrites?

Yes — the prompt behind the rewrite is editable. Set rules like “fix typos only,” “make it more formal,” or “never touch internal terminology” once, and every rewrite after that follows the same standard.

Will it change what I meant?

It’s built to polish rather than rewrite: typos, over-casual phrasing, run-on sentences, dropped words. It isn’t there to add information you didn’t write. And because the result goes to the clipboard, you check it before it goes anywhere.

How is this different from pasting into ChatGPT?

Mostly in the number of actions. Using an AI chat means switching windows, copying, pasting, writing an instruction, and picking the useful part out of the answer. This is select, press, paste. That difference is what stops you from skipping it when you’re busy.

Does it work on languages other than English?

Yes. Japanese is shown above, and the same shortcut applies to whatever you’ve selected.

Give yourself the three seconds back

Most people write far more than they think they do, and almost none of it is writing they intend to polish. It’s written quickly and sent quickly.

Which is exactly why the pause before sending is expensive. Each individual judgment call takes a second. Twenty of them a day is a real tax on your attention — and the tired version of you makes those calls worse than the morning version.

Writing polish doesn’t make the judgment for you. It puts one clean option in front of you before you have to make it. Select, press, paste. Don’t like it? Don’t paste it. That’s the whole feature.

It’s a small thing. But shortening the moment before you hit send changes how a day moves more than you’d expect. Confident writers still miss typos. Less confident writers stop rereading the same message four times.

MacSide AI is built around keeping the small tools you need mid-work right at the edge of your screen. Writing polish is likely to be the one you reach for most.