A tiny Mac menu bar app
The prompts you reuse, one click away.
Refrain lives in your menu bar and keeps the prompts you paste a hundred times a day one click from the clipboard. Plain-text file you own, no sync-lock, no subscription.
One-time purchase · macOS 14+ · 30-day refund, no questions.
One click, prompt on your clipboard.
macOS 14+ · Apple Silicon + Intel
Why pay $9.99 when there's already something free?
Because the free alternatives aren't quite aimed at this job.
| Refrain | Raycast Snippets | Apple Text Replacement | Alfred Snippets | Plain .md file | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Menu bar, not behind a launcher | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Multi-paragraph prompts | ✓ | ✓ | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Plain-text file you own | ✓ | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Reloads when you edit outside | ✓ | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Not tied to one search tool | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| Price | $9.99 once | Free* | Free | £34 | Free |
*Raycast Snippets are free inside Raycast. Alfred Snippets require the Powerpack.
None of these tools are bad. But Raycast Snippets live inside Raycast, Apple Text Replacement is one-liner-shaped, and Alfred Snippets cost more than Refrain and optimize for a different workflow. Refrain is the one you reach for when prompts are the thing.
Small app. Specific job.
Refrain does one thing: make the prompts you actually reuse fast to paste.
Menu bar first
Every prompt is one click away from your cursor. Nothing hides behind a keyboard shortcut you'll forget.
Nothing hides behind a shortcut you'll forget.
A file you own
Prompts live in a human-readable markdown file you picked the location of. Dropbox, iCloud, Syncthing, none of the above — it's your file.
Edit in place
Right-click a prompt to edit, duplicate, or delete. Drag to reorder. The editor is a real text editor, not a tiny one-line field.
External edits just work
Edit the .md file in Vim or VS Code and Refrain reloads automatically. Treat it as code if you want to.
vim ~/Documents/refrain-prompts.md :wq → Refrain reloads.
Multi-paragraph prompts
The prompts that actually help agents are long. Refrain stores and copies entire essays of instructions, not just one-liners.
name: make-comprehensive-plan
---
13 starter prompts
Ships with a ready library of planning, review, and investigation prompts for Claude Code, Cursor, and ChatGPT. Edit or delete any of them on day one.
make-comprehensive-plan · review-pass-nuances · final-review-pass ·
check-specifics-schemas · identify-missing-details · …
One price. Yours to keep.
A tool you buy once, put in your menu bar, and forget about. Except when you need it, which is often.
- One-time purchase, never a subscription
- Free updates forever
- Works on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs
- macOS 14 Sonoma and later
- No account, no login, no telemetry
- 30-day refund, no form to fill out
Questions
What's the refund policy?+
Email hello@greatwork.company within 30 days of purchase for a full refund. No form, no interrogation, usually same-day.
Which Macs does it run on?+
Any Mac running macOS 14 Sonoma or later, Intel or Apple Silicon. The app is universal. There's no iOS or Windows version.
Why not just use Raycast Snippets?+
If you already live in Raycast, you might be fine there. Refrain is for people who want their prompts sitting in the menu bar without launching a second tool, and who want prompts in a plain markdown file they can edit in any editor.
Where are my prompts stored? Can I sync them?+
In a single markdown file, at a location you pick on first launch. Point it at a Dropbox / iCloud Drive / Syncthing folder and you get sync for free. Or keep it local.
Can I share a prompt library with teammates?+
Yes. The storage is one markdown file. Commit it to a shared repo, drop it in a shared folder, or paste the contents. Whatever you want to do with a text file, you can do.
Does Refrain phone home?+
No. Refrain has no accounts, no telemetry, no analytics. It reads and writes one file on your disk.