Archie
Archie
/EN

How to fix grammar in any app on Mac and Windows

Fix grammar in any app on Mac or Windows without a browser extension. Learn how a system-wide writing assistant like Archie works in Slack, VS Code, Word, Notion, Discord, and more.

To fix grammar in any app on Mac or Windows, install a system-wide writing assistant that works via a global keyboard shortcut, no browser extension needed. Select the text you want to correct, press the shortcut (Cmd+Space on Mac, Ctrl+Space on Windows), and the correction appears in place. This works in Slack, Gmail, VS Code, Word, Notion, Discord, Linear, and any other desktop app, including places where browser extensions cannot reach.

Why browser extensions aren't enough

Grammarly, LanguageTool, and most other grammar tools ship as browser extensions. That means they work inside Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, and essentially nowhere else. The moment you switch to Slack desktop, open a Word document, write a commit message in your terminal, or add a comment in VS Code, you are on your own.

This is not a minor gap. Most knowledge workers in 2026 split their time across a dozen apps, only some of which live in a browser. If your grammar checker only covers a fraction of where you actually write, it is less useful than it sounds.

The fix is a system-wide writing assistant: a native Mac or Windows app that hooks into the operating system's accessibility APIs rather than into a specific browser. No matter which app has focus, the shortcut reaches it.

How system-wide correction works

On macOS, system-wide apps use the Accessibility API to read the selected text from whichever window is currently active, send it to a correction engine, and type the corrected version back, all in under two seconds. Windows uses a parallel set of accessibility APIs (UI Automation) that achieve the same result.

The practical workflow is always the same:

  1. Write your text in whatever app you are already using.
  2. Select the sentence or paragraph you want to fix.
  3. Press the keyboard shortcut.
  4. The corrected text replaces your selection.

No copy-pasting into a separate tool. No switching tabs. No browser involved.

Archie: a system-wide writing assistant for Mac and Windows

Archie is a system-wide AI writing assistant for Mac and Windows that corrects and reformulates text in any app via a keyboard shortcut, with offline voice dictation as a free secondary feature.

When you press the shortcut with text selected, Archie sends the selection to an LLM-backed correction engine and types the result back in place. When you press the shortcut without a selection, it starts voice dictation, transcribed locally using an on-device Parakeet model and inserted wherever your cursor sits. Correction requires an internet connection (the LLM runs in the cloud); voice dictation is fully offline.

You can learn more about how it works on the home page and the Features section. Pricing starts at €4.90/mo for the Pro plan; voice dictation is free forever. See the Pricing section.

How to fix grammar app by app

Here is how the correction shortcut behaves in the apps where people actually write.

Slack

Open any conversation or DM in Slack desktop (not the browser tab, the native Mac or Windows app). Type your message in the message box, select all or part of it, and press Cmd+Space (Mac) or Ctrl+Space (Windows). Archie reads the selected text, corrects spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and pastes the result back into the message box without sending. You review and hit Enter when ready.

This is the highest-impact use case for most teams: Slack messages are typed fast, skimmed by the reader in seconds, and carry real professional weight. A single shortcut before hitting Enter removes the typos that accumulate when you are writing in a hurry.

Gmail (Mail.app or browser)

In Apple Mail, compose a new message or reply, select the draft text, and press the shortcut. Archie replaces the selection with the corrected version. The same shortcut works in Gmail inside Chrome or Safari, because Archie operates at the OS level, not inside the browser, it reaches browser text fields just as easily as native ones.

For long emails, select the entire body and correct in a single pass. For shorter replies, selecting only the sentence you want to polish is faster.

VS Code (markdown, JSDoc, commit messages)

VS Code is one of the most interesting use cases because developers write natural language in several different contexts inside the editor: markdown documentation, JSDoc comments, code review notes, README files, PR descriptions, and the commit message dialog.

Select a block of markdown or a comment, press the shortcut, and Archie corrects it without touching the surrounding code. The replacement is a plain text paste, so it lands exactly where the selection was. This also works inside the VS Code integrated terminal: select a commit message draft, correct it, then run it.

For a deeper look at writing tools aimed at developers specifically, see Writing assistants for developers.

Word

In Microsoft Word (the native desktop app on Mac or Windows), select a paragraph or a full section, press the shortcut, and Archie replaces the selection. Word's own AutoCorrect still runs independently; Archie operates above it, at the OS level. This means you get the speed of a keyboard shortcut with the depth of an LLM grammar pass, rather than relying on Word's rule-based checker alone.

Long-form documents (reports, contracts, proposals) benefit most. Select section by section, correct each one, and move on. It takes less time than sending the document to a separate tool and considerably less than proofreading manually.

Notion

Notion's desktop app supports the same selection-and-shortcut flow. Click into any text block, select the content you want to correct, and press the shortcut. Archie replaces the selection inside the block. This works in page titles, body text, table cells, and comment threads.

Teams that use Notion as their internal wiki or writing tool often mix drafting speeds: some people write carefully, others dash things off. A quick correction shortcut before publishing a page to the team removes the roughness without slowing down the drafting process.

Discord

Discord's desktop app works identically to Slack. Select your message text in the input box, press the shortcut, and the corrected version replaces it before you send. This matters more than it might seem: many communities and professional networks have moved significant conversation volume to Discord, where the tone expectation is conversational but not careless.

Linear / Jira

Issue trackers are another place where grammar tools traditionally don't reach. In Linear or Jira's native desktop apps or web interfaces, select the text in a ticket description or comment, press the shortcut, and Archie corrects it. The same applies to GitHub issue bodies and PR descriptions. If the cursor is in a text field, the shortcut works.

Writing clear, well-formed ticket descriptions is an underrated productivity multiplier. A description that is easy to read is a description that gets acted on faster.

Terminal (commit messages)

Git commit messages are among the most neglected pieces of writing in software development. In your terminal (iTerm2, Terminal.app, Windows Terminal, or any other), type your commit message draft, select it, and press the shortcut. Archie corrects it in place. You get a clean, professional commit message in the same amount of time you would have spent re-reading it anyway.

This also works in any terminal text input: shell one-liners, documentation comments pasted for reference, anything typed into the terminal that contains natural language.

Why Grammarly and LanguageTool can't do this

Grammarly's browser extension is excellent at what it does: it intercepts keystrokes inside Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, and it sends text to Grammarly's servers for analysis. But that interception only works inside the browser extension's sandbox. Grammarly's Mac and Windows desktop apps use a combination of app-specific integrations and a floating toolbar; they reach Microsoft Word and a few other apps, but the coverage is selective and maintained manually per app.

LanguageTool follows the same browser-extension-first pattern. The open-source desktop version exists but is less comprehensive and still relies on app-specific support rather than OS-level accessibility.

A system-wide tool like Archie takes the opposite approach: it hooks into the OS once and reaches every app that supports standard text selection, which is essentially all of them. There is nothing to maintain per app, no extension to install per browser, and no whitelist of supported applications. If you can select text, the shortcut works.

For a full comparison of the category, see The 7 best Grammarly alternatives in 2026.

Mac vs Windows: what's the same, what's different

On macOS, Archie uses the Accessibility API (AXUIElement). Any app that follows macOS's standard accessibility guidelines (which covers essentially all major apps) exposes its text fields to this API. The shortcut is Cmd+Space.

On Windows, Archie uses UI Automation, Microsoft's accessibility framework. The coverage is equivalent: any app that implements standard Windows controls exposes its text fields through UI Automation. The shortcut is Ctrl+Space.

In both cases, the workflow is identical. There are no app-specific integrations to install or configure. The OS-level hook handles everything.

One practical note: sandboxed apps (a minority on both platforms) may restrict accessibility API access. In practice, the apps where most writing happens (communication tools, editors, browsers, document apps) are not sandboxed in ways that block text selection.

Setting up the correction shortcut

The setup is the same on Mac and Windows: download Archie, grant the accessibility permission when prompted (this is what enables the OS-level hook), and press the shortcut once to confirm it works.

The full walkthrough is in How to set up your writing shortcut on Mac.

After that, there is nothing else to configure. The shortcut is available immediately in every app.

What Archie does and doesn't do

To be precise about capabilities:

Correction requires internet. The grammar and reformulation engine is LLM-backed and runs in the cloud. A network connection is required for correction to work.

Voice dictation is offline. The dictation engine uses an on-device Parakeet model. It runs entirely on your machine, with no data leaving your device. It is free and unlimited because the marginal cost to Archie is zero.

No app-specific integrations. Archie does not inject itself into apps or modify their behavior. It reads selected text through the OS accessibility API and types the corrected text back. The app sees only the final text.

50+ languages. The correction engine handles English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and 45+ other languages. Select text in any language and press the shortcut; Archie detects the language automatically.

For a deeper look at how Archie works under the hood, see How Archie works.

Where to go from here