Espanso - Installation and Setup

February 13, 2026

Install Espanso (macOS) Using Homebrew

Open Terminal and install Espanso

brew install espanso

# Start the espanso service
espanso service register
espanso service start

# Check the status
~ ❯ espanso service status 
espanso is running

# Restart the service if required
~ ❯ espanso service restart
espanso started correctly!

# Unregister and Register the service if required
~ ❯ espanso service unregister
service unregistered correctly!
~ ❯ espanso service register
service registered correctly!

Enable Accessibility Permission Is Enabled

Go to: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility

What Is Zone Identifier

December 21, 2025

• What it is

  Zone.Identifier is Windows-only metadata stored as an NTFS Alternate Data Stream (ADS).

• Why it exists

  Windows uses it to mark files downloaded from the Internet for security purposes.

• Why it appears on macOS/Linux

  NTFS ADS is hidden on Windows, but when files are copied, zipped, or committed to Git and then opened on non-Windows systems, the metadata becomes a visible file:

  filename:Zone.Identifier
  

• Is it dangerous?

  ❌ No.

Customise Terminal

December 21, 2025

🎯 Goal

• Hide @computername
• Use a clean, professional prompt
• Reload config safely

✅ Step 1: Open zsh config with vi

vi ~/.zshrc

✅ Step 2: Add the custom prompt

# --- Custom prompt ---

# Colors
BLUE="%F{blue}"
RESET="%f"

# Prompt with color
PROMPT="${BLUE}%1~${RESET} ❯ "

✅ Step 4: Save and exit vi

✅ Step 5: Reload the config

source ~/.zshrc

Your prompt updates immediately.

🔁 Do I always need to run source ~/.zshrc?

• ✅ Yes → to apply changes now
• ❌ No → if you open a new Terminal window