1. Essentials

1.1. Organizing snippets with folders

SnippetsLab keeps your snippets organized by storing them in folders. When you select a folder from the sidebar, all snippets under that folder or any subfolders are listed in the main view. If a snippet does not belong to any folder, it will appear under “Uncategorized.”

To show or hide the sidebar: Choose View > Show Sidebar from the menubar, or press Shift-Command-L.
To create a folder, do any of the following:
- Choose Library > New Folder from the menubar.
- Click the button in the bottom left of the sidebar, then choose New Folder.
- Press Shift-Command-N.
To place a folder inside another folder, do any of the following:
- Drag the folder and drop it on top of the other folder.
- Hold Option when creating a new folder to create a nested folder directly.
To rename or delete a folder:
- Right-click a folder from the sidebar, then choose Rename or Delete.
- Deleting a folder will also delete all subfolders and move affected snippets to “Uncategorized.”
To automatically sort folders and Smart Groups: In Settings > General, select Automatically sort folders and Smart Groups.
To set the default language for a folder: See Default language.
To show or hide snippets from subfolders: Right-click on the snippets list view, and check or uncheck Display Options > Include Snippets From Subfolders.
To set a custom folder icon: Right-click on a folder, and choose Customize Icon…

Tip

You can drag one (or multiple) snippets directly to a folder to add them to said folder. This works for tags as well.

1.2. Adding and managing tags

You can add tags to your snippets to make them easier to find. Unlike folders, a snippet can have multiple tags at the same time.

To show the tags field: Click button and choose Add Tags.

If you use tags frequently, you may want to make the tags field always visible. To to that, from Settings > General, select Always show tags field.
To rename or delete a tag: Right-click on a tag from the sidebar, and select Rename or Delete.

Deleting a tag will remove it from all snippets.

Note

Tag names are case-insensitive, yet case-preserving. This means you can use any capitalization when searching for or adding existing tags, but they will always be displayed exactly as they were created. For example, after creating a tag named LaTeX, you can equivalently add or search for latex later.

1.3. Smart groups

Smart groups are a powerful feature of SnippetsLab that allows you to dynamically search your snippets based on custom predicates. This means that you can create smart groups to display subsets of your snippets that meet specific criteria, such as:

All snippets without any tags
All snippets with multiple fragments
All snippets in the Apple Development folder plus any that have either the iOS or Mac tag
All snippets that are modified within the last 7 days

Smart groups can be especially useful for organizing and managing large libraries of snippets. To create a smart group, follow these steps:

Choose Library > New Smart Group from the menubar, or press Control-Command-N.
Enter a name for your smart group.
Specify the rules you want to apply.
To add another set of rules within a rule, hold down the Option key and click the Nest button.
If you want to create more complex rules—for example, with some criteria matching all rules and others matching any—you can create sets of “nested” rules.

You can also rename, modify, duplicate, or delete smart groups by right-clicking on them and choosing the corresponding item in the context menu. You can also set a custom icon for any smart group by choosing Customize Icon… from the context menu.

Example smart groups

Here are a few examples of smart groups that you might find useful:

Recently modified: Display all snippets that have been modified within the last 7 days.
Untagged: Display all snippets that do not have any tags.
Attachments: Display all snippets that have attachments.
By language: Display all snippets in a specific language.
By project: Display all snippets that belong to a specific project (e.g. filtered by specific folders and/or tags).

Smart groups are a powerful and flexible tool that can help you to better organize and manage your snippets. Experiment with different smart groups to see how they can help you to be more productive.

1.4. Shortcuts

You can add your most frequently used folders, tags, and smart groups to the Favorites section of the sidebar as a shortcuts. This can help you to quickly access the items that you use most often.

To add a shortcut, do any of the following:
- Right-click on a folder, tag, or smart group and choose Add to Favorites.
- Drag a folder, tag, or smart group to the Favorites section.
To remove a shortcut: Right-click on a shortcut and choose Remove from Favorites.

Removing a shortcut won’t affect the underlying folder, tag, or smart group.

1.5. Languages

1.5.1. Active languages

SnippetsLab supports over 530 languages and text formats. To prevent the language menu from becoming overwhelmingly long, the app only shows active languages, as selected by the user. By default, the list of active languages only contains a handful of the most commonly used ones. You should customize this list to include the languages you personally use.

To set the active languages, open Settings > Languages. Select the checkbox next to a language to mark it as active. To find a language quickly, use the search field directly above the list. You can also click the Active button on the left to see only active languages.

Note

Unchecking a language as active will only hide it from the language menu. It won’t affect any snippets using this language.

1.5.2. Default language

You can select both an app-wide default language and a default for each folder. Newly created snippets will use the folders default language (if set), and fallback to the app-wide default.

To set an app-wide default language: Choose an item in Settings > General > Default Language.
To set a per-folder default language: Right-click on a folder and select an option in the Default Language submenu.

Note that in both cases, only Active languages are displayed in the menu.

1.5.3. Automatic language detection

SnippetsLab automatically detects and sets the language when you paste content into the editor. This feature is powered by machine learning and supports over 50 most commonly used languages.

By default, the app only detects language if there isn’t a default language set for the current folder. You can choose to always detect, or to disable it entirely, from Settings > Languages.

1.6. Snippets and fragments

A snippet can contain multiple fragments, which are individual parts of the snippet. Each fragment can have its own notes and language.

Fragments can be useful when a snippet logically consists of multiple parts, especially when they have different languages. Some common use cases include:

A class header and its implementation
Some HTML code and its JavaScript/CSS counterparts
Different solutions to one problem

To pin a snippet to the top: Swipe right to reveal the Pin action, or right-click and choose Pin from the context menu.
To create a new fragment: Click on the button and choose New Fragment, or press Command-T.
To rename or delete a fragment: Right-click on the fragment tab and choose the corresponding option.
To reorder fragments: Right-click on the fragment tab and choose Move to Right or Move to Left. Alternatively, use the keyboard shortcuts Option-Shift-Command-[ and Option-Shift-Command-].

Tip

You can use the Command-1~9 keys to quickly jump to a specific fragment.

1.7. Snippet and fragment links

Snippet and fragment links allow you to open a specific snippet or fragment with a deep link that starts with snippetslab://. These links work both inside and outside of SnippetsLab, even when the app is not running.

To obtain a deep link for a snippet: Right-click on the snippet from the snippets list, and choose Copy Snippet Link.
To obtain a deep link for a fragment: Right-click on the fragment tab, and choose Copy Fragment Link.

Snippet and fragment links can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as:

Referencing other snippets and fragments within SnippetsLab
Linking to contents stored in SnippetsLab from other documents, such as wiki pages or README files
Creating custom keyboard shortcuts or macros that open specific snippets and fragments

Tip

You can hold the Command key while clicking a deep link in order to open it in a new snippet window.

1.8. Custom notes

You can add notes for a fragment to a dedicated notes area. Notes are a great way to add additional contexts and references that you do not want to copy otherwise.

By default, the notes area is hidden if there are no notes for the current fragment. To add notes, click the button and choose Add Notes.

If you use notes frequently, you may want to set the notes area to always be present. To do so, from Settings > General, select Always show notes field.

1.9. Attachments

SnippetsLab allows you to add attachments to snippets. This can be useful for storing related files, such as screenshots, sample data, or configuration files. There is no limit to what files can be attached, as long as the individual files are below the limit of 100 MB.

To insert an attachment, do any of the following:

Click on the button and choose Add Attachments….
Drag and drop a file into the snippet area.
Paste images and files directly into the editor.

1.9.1. Preview and manage attachments

To view an attached file, double-click the attachment or press the spacebar while selected. This will activate Quick Look, which allows you to preview the file without opening it. Note that Quick Look may not be available for all file types. Any Quick Look plugin installed on the system will also be used.

You can also perform other actions on the attachment from the context menu, such as opening, renaming, deleting, or saving a copy.

1.9.2. Markdown image links

You can make any image attachment show up in Markdown preview by inserting a special image link. To do this, simply drag an attachment into the editor, or right-click on an attachment and choose Insert as Markdown Link.

Please note that these options are only available when you are editing a Markdown snippet.

1.9.3. Optimize image attachments

When inserting images, you can allow SnippetsLab to automatically optimize the files. This optimization can often reduce the image file size considerably with only minimal impact on the perceived quality. You can toggle this option at Settings > General > Save optimized copies when importing images.

Tip

You can create a smart group to show all snippets with attachments.

1.10. Searching

SnippetsLab offers powerful searching capabilities. You can search from both the main application and the menu bar assistant. To switch key focus to the search bar from anywhere in the app, use the keyboard shortcut Shift-Command-F.

1.10.1. Search options

SnippetsLab allows you to toggle a number of search features, such as full-text search, fuzzy search, result ranking, and case sensitivity. To change these settings, click the button to reveal the options menu.