After years of building web apps where “performance” means a 2-second LCP and “local storage” is a suggestion, I took the last 2-3 months to explore the desktop ecosystem. Since I don’t like opening browsers masquerading as apps all the time, Rust and specifically Tauri looked great.
I wanted to try how much can I like the core desktop app building experience. Pexand is the result - a simple text expander that does exactly what you need without the bloat.
Why Pexand?
Pexand is a text expander written in Rust. It’s gloriously, unapologetically “dumb.” Most modern apps want to know your location, your mother’s maiden name, and your favorite flavor of cloud storage. Pexand just wants to know if you typed ;shrug.
How It Works
The way it works is interesting:
- A background thread called the Sentinel sits in the background, quietly monitoring your keystrokes using Windows hooks, waiting for a trigger
- When the sentinel sees one, it reaches into a Radix Trie (because O(m) lookup is the only way to live) and swaps your shortcut for the real deal in under 5ms
And.. that’s it.
Features
- Lightning Fast: Native Rust performance, instant expansion
- Completely Offline: Your data stays private, no cloud sync
- Simple Setup: Easy to remember shortcuts, works everywhere
- Tiny Footprint: Less than 5MB installed, minimal resources
Technical Details
- Built with: Rust, Tauri
- Platform: Windows 10+
- Size: ~4.8 MB
- License: MIT
- Last Updated: January 2026