espanso/espanso

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

14361 stars · 456 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

Espanso is a privacy-first, cross-platform text expander written in Rust that detects typed keywords and replaces them with text, images, emojis, dates, or script output system-wide. It works with almost any application, is fully local with no tracking, and is extensible via a built-in package manager and file-based YAML configuration.

Use cases

• expand text snippets system-wide while typing
• insert emojis with short keywords in any app
• run custom scripts or shell commands from typed triggers
• create system-wide code snippets and email templates
• auto-insert current or future dates while typing
• build personal autocorrect rules
• search and insert snippets with a hotkey search bar

When to choose

• you want a free, open-source alternative to TextExpander or aText
• you need snippet expansion that works across Windows, macOS, and Linux
• privacy matters and you want everything processed 100% locally
• you want script, form, image, and date expansion beyond plain text
• you prefer file-based YAML configuration and community packages

When to avoid

• you need cloud sync of snippets across devices out of the box
• you rely on Wayland exclusively and need fully mature support (still experimental)
• you need a GUI editor for managing snippets rather than editing config files
• you need team-shared snippet management with admin controls

Facets

application · maturity stable

developer-tools workflow-automation cli gui plugin-system developer-tools cross-platform windows cross-platform rust text-expander snippets text-expansion autocorrect emoji keyboard-productivity privacy-first package-manager automation command-line macos linux desktop

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="espanso/espanso")