Install on Linux

The linux installation depends on the distro you are using. Espanso has been tested in the following distros, but you shouldn't have many problems making it work on others.

• Ubuntu/Debian
• Manjaro/Arch

Wayland support

Currently espanso supports X11 systems only, but future support for Wayland is being investigated. Follow this issue to stay updated.

Installing on Ubuntu / Debian

You can install espanso in various ways on Debian-based systems. As of now, the recommended ways are either SNAP or the DEB package.

Installing using SNAP

If you are using Ubuntu, the easiest way to install espanso is by using snap.

Open a terminal and type:

sudo snap install espanso --classic

For more information about this method, check out the snap page.

Important: if you are upgrading espanso, after the previous command, execute espanso unregister in the terminal.

You should now have espanso installed in your system. To start it, type the following command:

espanso start

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

Note: after executing the previous command, espanso will prompt the user to register a Systemd service. This is needed to automatically start espanso at system startup.

At this point, you should install modulo to enable the GUI features.

Installing using DEB package

Espanso ships with a .deb package, which makes it pretty convenient to install on Debian-based systems.

Start by downloading the latest release:

wget https://github.com/federico-terzi/espanso/releases/download/v0.7.3/espanso-debian-amd64.deb

If you want to verify the correctness of the archive, in the Github Releases page you will find the SHA256 hash in the file espanso-debian-amd64-sha256.txt.

You can now install the package using:

sudo apt install ./espanso-debian-amd64.deb

You should now have espanso installed in your system. To start it, type the following command:

espanso start

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

Note: after executing the previous command, espanso will prompt the user to register a Systemd service. This is needed to automatically start espanso at system startup.

At this point, you should install modulo to enable the GUI features.

Manual installation

Espanso depends upon the X11 Record Extension, the xdo library, the xclip command and the libnotify-bin library, so you will need to install those first with the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install libxtst6 libxdo3 xclip libnotify-bin

You can now download the latest espanso release:

curl -L https://github.com/federico-terzi/espanso/releases/download/v0.7.3/espanso-linux.tar.gz | tar -xz -C /tmp/

If you want to verify the correctness of the archive, in the Github Releases page you will find the SHA256 hash in the file espanso-linux-sha256.txt.

And then move it to the /usr/local/bin/ directory

sudo mv /tmp/espanso /usr/local/bin/espanso

If you want to avoid using sudo, you can move espanso in the ~/.local/bin directory instead. Make sure that the ~/.local/bin directory is in the PATH. If not present, you may need to reboot the system.

You should now have espanso installed in your system. To start it, type the following command:

espanso start

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

Note: after executing the previous command, espanso will prompt the user to register a Systemd service. This is needed to automatically start espanso at system startup.

At this point, you should install modulo to enable the GUI features.

Installing on Manjaro / Arch

There are multiple ways to install espanso on Arch: the preferred method is by using the AUR package, but you can also install it manually from the prebuilt executables.

Installing from AUR

The official way to install espanso on Arch-based systems is by using one of the AUR packages, currently maintained by Scrumplex. There are multiple options available:

• espanso - Builds from the latest (stable) release.
• espanso-git - Builds from latest commit (in dev branch).

When you are ready, you can install espanso with:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/espanso.git
cd espanso
makepkg -si

You should now have espanso installed in your system. To start it, type the following command:

espanso start

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

Note: after executing the previous command, espanso will prompt the user to register a Systemd service. This is needed to automatically start espanso at system startup.

At this point, you should install modulo to enable the GUI features.

Installing from the prebuilt release

Espanso depends upon the X11 Record Extension, the xdo library, the xclip command and the libnotify library, so you will need to install those first with the following commands:

sudo pacman -Sy
sudo pacman -S libxtst xdotool xclip libnotify

You can now download the latest espanso release:

curl -L https://github.com/federico-terzi/espanso/releases/download/v0.7.3/espanso-linux.tar.gz | tar -xz -C /tmp/

If you want to verify the correctness of the archive, in the Github Releases page you will find the SHA256 hash in the file espanso-linux-sha256.txt.

And then move it to the /usr/local/bin/ directory

sudo mv /tmp/espanso /usr/local/bin/espanso

If you want to avoid using sudo, you can move espanso in the ~/.local/bin directory instead. Make sure that the ~/.local/bin directory is in the PATH. If not present, you may need to reboot the system.

You should now have espanso installed in your system. To start it, type the following command:

espanso start

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

Note: after executing the previous command, espanso will prompt the user to register a Systemd service. This is needed to automatically start espanso at system startup.

At this point, you should install modulo to enable the GUI features.

Installing Modulo

Since version 0.7.0, espanso introduced a few gui-related features that require modulo to be installed in your system. While not strictly required, it's highly suggested to install it enable some very useful features, such as Forms..

Manual installation

Installing modulo is pretty straight forward, being it packaged as an AppImage. Here's the list of suggested steps:

# Make sure to have the $HOME/opt directory
mkdir -p $HOME/opt

# Download the latest Modulo AppImage in the $HOME/opt
wget https://github.com/federico-terzi/modulo/releases/latest/download/modulo-x86_64.AppImage -O $HOME/opt/modulo.AppImage

# Make it executable:
chmod u+x $HOME/opt/modulo.AppImage

# Create a link to make modulo available as "modulo"
sudo ln -s $HOME/opt/modulo.AppImage /usr/bin/modulo

Note that these steps can be changed in many ways, the only requirement is that the modulo binary is available as modulo in the PATH.

Installing on Manjaro / Arch

Similarily to espanso itself, there are multiple ways to install modulo on Arch: You can either use the manual method above or install it using the AUR package.

Installing from AUR

The official way to install modulo on Arch-based systems is by using one of the AUR packages, currently maintained by Scrumplex. There are multiple options available:

• modulo - Builds from the latest (stable) release.
• modulo-git - Builds from the latest commit (in dev branch)

After you chose the package you want, you can install modulo with:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/modulo.git
cd modulo
makepkg -si

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