Espanso

Espanso is a text expander that watches what you type and replaces short keywords with longer content the moment you trigger them. Type :email and get a full email template. Type :date and get today's date. It works system-wide across virtually any application, so you're not limited to a single browser or editor.

It's built for anyone who types the same things repeatedly: customer support agents, developers inserting code snippets, medical professionals writing reports, or security researchers pasting payloads. If you've used TextExpander or PhraseExpress before, Espanso covers most of the same ground without a subscription.

Key capabilities include:

• Keyword triggers that expand to text, emojis, dates, or dynamic content as you type
• Forms support for complex templates where you fill in fields before the snippet is inserted
• Shell and script integration so snippets can run a command and inject its output directly into any app
• Package ecosystem for extending functionality, with community packages for things like mathematical notation, accented characters, and emoji shortcuts
• ALT+Space search bar to find any snippet when you don't remember its trigger
• File-based configuration following a Unix-like philosophy, making it easy to version-control your snippets
• Cross-platform support across Windows, macOS, and Linux

The shell integration is where Espanso pulls ahead of simpler alternatives. You can pipe in your current IP address, generate a timestamp from a script, or forward form values into custom code. That makes it genuinely useful for technical workflows, not just boilerplate text.

Configuration lives in plain files, which means your snippets are portable and easy to back up or sync. A GUI is planned but not yet available, so comfort with text files helps. It's licensed under GPL-3.