Espanso - Open Source Privacy Focused -TextExpander Replacement

Espanso works on windows and macos

  • it works on iOS / iPadOS? It works… sort of… if you use their keyboard … or the app supports it…

not the two I was looking for. :smiley:

When I am referring to TextExpander, I mean the FULL power of TextExpander, which includes Fill-In Snippets. Yeah, I get that the other apps can do what the TextExpander keyboard can do, but that’s not really all of TextExpander.

I pay $1.77/month for TE and I will place that value against any subscription in the appleverse. Smile is not the best company in the Apple world, but TE is one of the best apps. I get that everyone has different needs, but if I were going to cut any corners by replacing an app with a free clone, it would not be TE, Hazel, 1Password, Alfred, Keyboard Maestro, or Drafts. They are untouchable.

I agree completely with the fill in snippets.
For me: I do not have a use for them, the combination Espanso and Keyboard maestro is sufficient for me on the mac.

My subscription must haves would be: Hazel, Bitwarden, Alfred, Keyboard Maestro, or Drafts
(I removed 1Password from my subscriptions and all my systems when they no longer allowed local vaults)

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Can you still use the older versions with the local vaults or have the OS upgrades kill them?

TextExpander also works on iOS/iPadOS with a some of the apps I use, so it has also this value for me.

same here. Drafts, Byword, Fantastical, Omnifocus, GV Connect all have Fill-in Snippets support thank goodness.

But note that the Text Expander SDK is being discontinued in favor of an iOS keyboard (We’re Saying Goodbye to SDK), so the integration with Drafts, for example, is going away. That greatly reduces its value for me, so I’ll be ending my sub.

I will at least wait until I see what the keyboard can do. But honestly, TE is so far ahead of the other macOS expansion apps, Id probably still keep it for macOS only…

Note that Espanso has an equivalent to TE’s Fill-In Snippets via its Forms feature:

Without considering mobile support I’d struggle to see why one would choose TE over espanso…

They are not really equivalent. TE does a lot more than just “fill in the blank” and “expand text”. Expanso Forms are very rudimentary but It’s a good start and I hope they do well. Smile needs competition. They are prone to complacency.

Maybe I’m missing something; what does TE have that other Mac based text expanders don’t?

here are a couple of things. read through these pages for the full picture.

Thanks for the links, this was an interesting read through.

Most of this seems to either be supported in Espanso (forms, date math, cursor placement, excluding specific apps, most rich text, etc), or doable in Espanso by calling outside scripts (mostly any more complex text manipulation, or things you would AppleScript).

However, I can definitely see a few things that are pretty unique to TE (mostly RTF handling, analyzing non-snippet/non-abbreviation text, as well as a few more specific options such as monitoring key-up events).

Some people will never need any features other than text expansion so most of the other apps are fine but one of the cool things about TE is they seem to push the envelope, and we can find stuff to do with it that we weren’t even looking for.