Confirmation

For a confirmation message (neutral and positive variants), use a short past participle verb phrase: (optional) noun + verb ending in -ed + (optional) prepositional phrase with more information. If you refer to an interface element directly, put its name in bold text.

Informational

For an informational message (informative variant), write in a complete sentence following the formula of subject + verb phrase + optional additional information.

Error

For an error message (negative variant), use a short phrase — it can be a complete sentence or not — to describe what's happening as succinctly as possible. Whenever possible, include an in-line action for a user to take so that they can readily address the issue explained in the message.

Write in sentence case with no period

Like all in-product content at Adobe, toasts and their actions are written in sentence case. If the toast's message is a single sentence, do not add a period to the end; this helps keep the text quicker to read and easier to parse.

Toasts should ideally only be a single sentence, but if you need to use two or more sentences to most accurately communicate the information, add a period to the end of each sentence.

Use an instructive tone

Toasts offer quick reference or context, so a user should be able to quickly read a message that's brief and optimized for delivery. Use an instructive tone that presents the message in a concise and neutral way.

Because users are likely to see several toasts in quick succession, it's not appropriate to use overly playful, encouraging, or celebratory language. Just convey the message, then get out of the way so that they can get back to the task at hand. Toasts are not appropriate for promotional messaging or upsells that show the benefit of doing or trying something.

Use generic language

Whenever possible, use generic language in confirmation and error messages. This approach allows for better localization and it also reduces the need to write many different versions of toasts for similar use cases. It's usually unnecessary to include specific filenames, usernames, or folders because a user can get that context from elsewhere in the UI.