Show IH: I got tired of fragmented text expanders, so I built an open-source, cross-platform alternative: Typerelay
Hey Indie Hackers,
Text expansion is one of those unsexy productivity tools that quietly saves hours every week. But if you work across different environments (e.g., Mac for design, Linux for servers, Windows for gaming or desktop apps), existing tools fall apart fast.
Most incumbents suffer from three major issues:
OS lock-in: Great on Mac, clunky or absent on Linux/Windows.
Outdated UX: Interfaces designed a decade ago.
Black-box security: Text expanders require accessibility/keystroke permissions by nature, yet almost none let you inspect the code.
To fix this, I built Typerelay (typerelay.com)—an AGPL open-source text expander with cloud sync and team collaboration.
Core specs:
Native Desktop & Mobile: Runs across macOS, Windows, and Linux, with public beta apps for iOS and Android.
Three snippet formats: Plain text, rich text (HTML/images), and code snippets built in a dedicated code editor.
Search palette: Quick fuzzy search popup so you don’t need to memorize hundreds of shortcut triggers.
Deployment options: Use the hosted cloud (Free, Pro, and Team tiers) or self-host the open-source server yourself.
The desktop client is free to test, and the backend is open source.
Check it out at typerelay.com. I’d love your feedback on the onboarding flow and cross-platform UX!
How does the mobile implementation work given the strict sandboxing around system-wide keystrokes on those platforms? Is it built as a custom keyboard extension, or does it rely on a clipboard workflow instead? System-level expansion on mobile is always a tricky technical hurdle, so I'm curious how you tackled that.
Mobile can be challenging. To address this, I've developed a custom keyboard that allows you to search for snippets and insert them easily. This was the only solution that worked for both iOS and Android. Currently, both platforms are in beta testing. I'm still fine-tuning the keyboard's positioning on Android.
The security argument is the strongest thing you have and cloud sync quietly undercuts it. Being able to read the source answers what the app does on my machine, but the worry with a tool that sees keystrokes is what leaves the machine, and an audit of the client does not settle that. Two things would: a plain page describing exactly what is transmitted and when, and a local only mode that is visibly first class rather than a fallback. People who care enough about this to leave an incumbent are the ones who will ask, and they ask before they try it, not after.
That’s fair. Typerelay already keeps libraries local unless you explicitly upload them, but we haven’t made that boundary visible enough. We’ll publish a plain-language page showing exactly what leaves the machine and make local-only use a first-class choice throughout the product.