Skip to main content
Version: v0.7.3 (Legacy)

Install on macOS

The easiest way to install espanso on macOS is by using the Homebrew package manager, but you can also do it manually.

Using Homebrew

The first thing to do is to add the official espanso tap to Homebrew with the following command:

brew tap federico-terzi/espanso

Then you can install espanso with:

brew install espanso

To make sure that espanso was correctly installed, you can open a terminal and type:

espanso --version

At this point, you have to Enable Accessibility to use espanso.

Manually

Download espanso-mac.tar.gz from the Releases page:

curl -sOL https://github.com/federico-terzi/espanso/releases/download/v0.7.3/espanso-mac.tar.gz

Extract the binary:

tar -xzf espanso-mac.tar.gz

Create a folder to house the binary:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/espanso/bin
sudo cp espanso /usr/local/espanso/bin/espanso

Create a symbolic link in your /usr/local/bin folder:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/espanso/bin/espanso /usr/local/bin

To make sure that espanso was correctly installed, you can open a terminal and type:

espanso --version

Important: Some of the most recent espanso features require also modulo, so make sure to follow the installation instructions from the modulo docs.

At this point, you have to Enable Accessibility to use espanso.

Enabling Accessibility

Because espanso uses the macOS Accessibility API to work, you need to authorize it using the following procedure:

Open a terminal and type the command:

espanso register

A dialog should show up, click on "Open System Preferences", as shown here:

Accessibility Prompt

Then, in the "Privacy" panel click on the Lock icon (1) to enable edits and then check "espanso" (2), as shown in the picture:

Accessibility Settings

Now open the terminal again and type:

espanso start

If everything goes well, you should see the espanso icon appear in the status bar:

macOS status bar icon

If you now type :espanso in any text field, you should see "Hi there!" appear!

At this point, you are ready to read the Getting Started tutorial.

Donate

The author of the project

Hi! I'm Federico, the creator of espanso. If you liked the project, please consider making a small donation, it really helps :)

Also, if you are looking to create educational videos such as tutorials, courses, and product demos, you might enjoy my latest project, Borumi.

A special thanks goes to all the wonderful people who supported espanso along the way

Together, we will make espanso the first universal text expander, open to everyone.

Contributing

Espanso is open source and hosted on GitHub.

Star

If you find a bug or have an idea for a new feature, please open an issue on GitHub.