If you've been using AI tools long enough, you've got a graveyard of prompts scattered across Notion docs, Slack messages, and half-forgotten text files. PromptStash, a new Chrome extension dropped on May 18, 2026, aims to solve that workflow nightmare by giving you one stash for every major chatbot interface. The extension supports ChatGPT (both chatgpt.com and chat.openai.com), Claude.ai, Gemini.google.com, Perplexity.ai, and Copilot.microsoft.com โ€” covering essentially every mainstream AI chat option out there.

How It Works

The workflow is dead simple: install the extension, add your prompts through the toolbar icon (or import via JSON), then head to any supported site. When you need a prompt, just type "/" in the chat input field and a palette pops up right where you're typing. Search for what you want, select it, and the prompt drops into the message box. That's it. No tab switching, no clipboard acrobatics. The whole thing stays out of your way until you need it. What makes this actually useful is the variable system. You can define prompts with placeholders like {{topic}} or {{audience}}, and when you insert that prompt, PromptStash pauses to ask you for those values before sending. It's a small touch, but it transforms static templates into reusable workflows. Instead of manually editing "Write about X for Y audience" every time, you save it once as /blog-post, hit space, fill in the blanks, and go.

Custom Shortcuts and Export Flexibility

The extension also lets you assign custom shortcut names to your prompts โ€” save something as "/translate" or "/summarize" and expand it instantly with a keystroke. This mirrors the muscle-memory workflow developers love from tools like Spotlight or VS Code's command palette. For power users who live in AI chat interfaces all day, cutting even two or three seconds off each prompt retrieval adds up fast. Data portability is another win. PromptStash lets you export and import your entire prompt library as JSON. No vendor lock-in, no account required, no cloud dependency. Your prompts are yours to move wherever โ€” between browsers, machines, or into a future tool if PromptStash disappears tomorrow. The extension comes in at just 35.59KiB, so it's not going to clog up your system.

Privacy and Local-First Design

On the privacy front, PromptStash keeps everything local-first. All prompt storage happens directly in your browser โ€” nothing gets transmitted to any server. Developer jescabvig explicitly states no data is collected, sold, or transferred for unrelated purposes. For anyone who's rightfully paranoid about feeding yet another extension access to their AI usage patterns, this is reassuring. No account creation, no tracking pixels, just a tool that does what it says.

Key Takeaways

  • Single "/" command palette works across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot
  • Variable placeholders ({{topic}}, {{audience}}) enable dynamic prompt templates
  • Custom shortcut names let you expand prompts with space key triggers
  • Full JSON export/import means zero lock-in โ€” your data stays portable
  • Local-first storage with no account required โ€” privacy-conscious by design

The Bottom Line

PromptStash won't win any awards for originality โ€” command palettes have been around forever. But it's solving a real pain point that most power users of AI tools have silently accepted as just part of the workflow. At zero cost, no strings attached, and a clean local-first approach, this is exactly the kind of utility extension that gets installed once and forgotten about... until you realize how much time you've saved.