Text snippet variables & placeholders: templates that fill themselves

A good template saves time. A template that personalizes itself saves more. With placeholders, one snippet adapts to every message — the date fills in on its own, and the name is the only thing you type.

The problem with plain canned responses is the editing. You paste "Hi [name], your order ships on [date]" and then hunt for the brackets to fix them by hand. Placeholders remove that step: you mark the parts that change once, and ReplyKit fills them in when you insert the snippet.

The two kinds of placeholders

Wrap a token in curly braces anywhere in your snippet, like {name}. There are two behaviors:

{date}, {time} and {datetime} are automatic — you never type them. Any other token becomes a fill-in field: when you insert the snippet, ReplyKit asks you for each one, then drops the finished text at your cursor.

How to use them (in 3 steps)

1. Save a snippet with placeholders, e.g. Hi {name}, your order ships on {date}. Thanks for your patience!
2. In any text field, type // and pick the snippet.
3. ReplyKit fills {date} automatically and asks you for {name}. Type "Maria", and you get: Hi Maria, your order ships on 07/07/2026. Thanks for your patience!

Templates worth turning dynamic

Order update

Meeting confirmation

Support follow-up

Tips

• Reuse the same token name to fill it once — every {name} in a snippet gets the value you type.
• Keep token names short and obvious ({name}, {date}, {link}) so you remember what to type.
• Combine with a short trigger: type ;ship to expand your order-update template instantly.
• Use {date} for anything dated — logs, timestamps, "as of today" lines — and never update it by hand again.

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