Opens instantly
A real native app, not a browser in a box. Around 4 MB on disk, on screen before you finish reaching for the keyboard. Your thought is still fresh when the cursor starts blinking.
v0.4.1 is out · Linux & macOS
Dead simple.
Dead simple.
No BS.
It never loses your text.
A simple notepad and plain text editor for Linux and macOS. It opens instantly, remembers everything, and stays out of your way. No plugins. No AI sidebar. No account. No “What’s new” popup. Just a place to type.
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tsubaie/RusTXT/main/install.sh | sh
- ~4 MBon disk
- <0.5 sto save a keystroke
- 0popups, ever
- MITfree & open source
notes.txt
Untitled 2
Saved to disk just now
Why RusTXT
It’s Rust. It opens, it saves,
it stays out of your way.
That’s it. That’s the whole pitch.
Never loses your work
Every keystroke hits disk within half a second. Close the window, kill the process, pull the plug. Open it again and every tab, line and cursor is exactly where you left it.
Nothing to learn
Tabs, a menu bar, find and replace, a status bar. It’s the notepad you already know, with the same shortcuts as every text editor you have ever used. There is no tutorial because there is nothing to tutor.
Just works
Atomic saves, permissions kept, symlinks respected, CRLF or LF preserved exactly. Your text files stay ordinary text files, readable by anything, including your future self.
Recovery
It has never once asked
“Do you want to save changes?”
And it never will. RusTXT writes a recovery snapshot within half a second of every edit, so the question is pointless.
- Unsaved tabs survive crashes, reboots and dead batteries
- Undo history, cursor and scroll position come back too
- Closed a tab? Ctrl+Shift+T brings it back by its first line
- Files are written to a temp file and renamed atomically
-
1
You type
Half a second later the text is in the recovery store. No save dialog, no reminder.
-
2
Laptop dies at 1%
Or the process is killed. Or you just close the window without thinking about it.
-
3
You open RusTXT
Every tab, every unsaved line, and even the cursor position are right where you left them.
Features
Everything a text editor needs.
Nothing it doesn’t.
Editing
- Tabs that remember. Each keeps its own undo history, cursor and scroll position across restarts.
- Find and replace with match counting, match case, whole word and regular expressions. Ctrl+F, Ctrl+H, F3.
- Zoom with Ctrl + wheel. Word wrap and status bar toggles in the View menu.
- Native printing through the system dialog. Date and time stamp with F5.
- Line endings preserved. Opens CRLF, saves CRLF. The status bar tells you which.
Recovery
- Every keystroke saved to a recovery store within half a second. Reopen and everything is back.
- Close for now, or discard for good. Closing a tab keeps its copy. Notes with unsaved text are kept forever.
- Recently closed lists tabs by their first line. The twenty most recent saved files are remembered.
- Safe file writes. Temp file, atomic rename, permissions kept, symlinks written through.
Scripts and fonts
- Right-to-left just works. Arabic, Hebrew and Persian lines flow and align the way they should.
- Arabic looks right out of the box, set in Noto Naskh Arabic next to whatever monospace font you use.
- Pick any font in Settings and the pairing follows.
Fits your desktop
- One Settings menu. Theme, title bar, zoom, font, word wrap, status bar. Ctrl+, opens it. That is the whole list.
- Follows your desktop. On Omarchy it picks up the active theme and re-themes live. Light, dark, system, or your own palette otherwise.
- Updates on your terms. Check for updates does nothing until you press it.
- Open from the terminal.
rustxt notes.txt todo.md. A second launch hands files to the running window.
Arabic & right-to-left
مساحة لأفكارك، بلغتك.
Your words. Your language.
Right out of the box.
Write in Arabic, mix in English, and keep your train of thought. Right-to-left lines flow and align the right way, and Arabic is paired with Noto Naskh Arabic next to your monospace font automatically. Hebrew and Persian too.
A closer look
Real menus. Real shortcuts.
One settings screen.
~/.config/rustxt/themes/ to make your own.Keyboard shortcuts
The ones you already know.
- New tab
- Ctrl+N
- Open
- Ctrl+O
- Save / Save as
- Ctrl+S / Ctrl+Shift+S
- Close tab
- Ctrl+W
- Reopen closed tab
- Ctrl+Shift+T
- Next / previous tab
- Ctrl+Tab
- Find
- Ctrl+F
- Replace
- Ctrl+H
- Find next / previous
- F3 / Shift+F3
- Go to line
- Ctrl+G
- Zoom in / out / reset
- Ctrl++ / - / 0
- Settings
- Ctrl+,
Install
One command. You’re in.
Linux on x86_64. It fetches the latest release for your distro, verifies it against the release’s SHA256SUMS, and installs it with pacman, apt or dnf. It compiles nothing, and the script is short enough to read first.
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tsubaie/RusTXT/main/install.sh | sh
Or download a package
| Distro | File | Install |
|---|---|---|
| Arch Linux / Omarchy | rustxt-*.pkg.tar.zst | sudo pacman -U rustxt-*.pkg.tar.zst |
| Debian 13+ / Ubuntu 25.04+ | rustxt_*_amd64.deb | sudo apt install ./rustxt_*_amd64.deb |
| Fedora 42+ | rustxt-*.x86_64.rpm | sudo dnf install ./rustxt-*.x86_64.rpm |
| Any Linux | rustxt-*-x86_64-linux.tar.gz | extract, then ./install.sh |
Needs GTK 4.16, libadwaita 1.6 and GtkSourceView 5 or newer. Every release ships a SHA256SUMS file.
Build from source
omarchy pkg add gtk4 libadwaita gtksourceview5
cargo install --path crates/rustxt-gtksudo apt install libgtk-4-dev libadwaita-1-dev libgtksourceview-5-dev
cargo install --path crates/rustxt-gtksudo dnf install gtk4-devel libadwaita-devel gtksourceview5-devel
cargo install --path crates/rustxt-gtkbrew install gtk4 libadwaita gtksourceview5
cargo install --path crates/rustxt-gtkOr run it straight from the source tree with cargo run -p rustxt.
FAQ
Good questions.
Simple answers.
Is RusTXT a notepad replacement for Linux and macOS?
Yes. RusTXT is a plain text editor in the notepad tradition: tabs, a menu bar, find and replace, and a status bar, with nothing else in the way. It adds what a classic notepad lacks, such as autosave recovery, right-to-left text, and themes that follow your desktop.
Is RusTXT free?
Yes. RusTXT is open source under the MIT license. Use it, read the source, change it, and contribute on GitHub.
What happens to text I haven’t saved?
Every keystroke goes to a recovery store within half a second. Close the window, kill the process or lose power, and the next launch brings back every tab, every unsaved line and the cursor position. “Discard changes and close” is the only way to lose text, and it asks first.
Which systems does it run on?
Linux x86_64 packages for Arch Linux and Omarchy, Debian 13+, Ubuntu 25.04+, and Fedora 42+, plus a tarball for any other Linux. macOS works through a source build with Homebrew. It needs GTK 4.16, libadwaita 1.6 and GtkSourceView 5.
Does it support Arabic and right-to-left text?
Yes. Arabic, Hebrew and Persian lines flow and align the right way. Arabic is set in Noto Naskh Arabic next to your monospace font out of the box.
Does it phone home or check for updates on its own?
No. The About dialog has a “Check for updates” button that does nothing until you press it. No accounts, no analytics, no popups.
Is the editor at the top the real app?
It is a small browser demo of the window, made for this page. The screenshots further down are the real desktop app. Install RusTXT for the native editor and its recovery features.
Sometimes all you need
is a place to type.
No account to create. No AI sidebar to close. Just a blinking cursor and whatever’s on your mind.