twtGUI

A graphical client for twtxt, a decentralized microblogging protocol based on plain text files.

Important

This project is under active development and may introduce breaking changes! Please check for updates regularly.

Installing

This client supports every desktop operating system (Windows, macOS, Linux). You can grab the latest release here.

macOS note: macOS may show a warning that twtGUI is damaged. This is because the app is not notarized. Run:

xattr -cr /path/to/twtGUI.app

Then open the app normally.

If you encounter any issues, please open a bug report!

If you want to see a new feature or an improvement, please open a feature request!

Building

You will need the following prerequisites:

• Rust
• Cargo

You can install both of these through Rustup.

After installing, simply clone this repository and run twtGUI:

git clone https://github.com/taxevaiden/twtGUI
cd twtGUI
cargo run            # debug build
cargo run --release  # optimized build (slower to compile, faster to run)

Cargo should automatically install any dependencies.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Features

• Tweeting markdown-formatted posts
• Fetching viewing, and following feeds
• The twtxt v2 specification
  • Mentions
  • Twt Hash Extension
  • Twt Subject Extension
  • Multiline Extension
  • Metadata Extension
  • Archive Feeds Extension

If you're someone whose twtxt.txt only follows the twtxt v1 specification, this client's great for you!

If you're someone whose twtxt.txt follows the twtxt v2 specification, expect some features to be missing.

Configuration

twtGUI uses a config.toml file to store user settings and follow information.
The file is automatically created on first launch if it does not already exist.

There is currently no dedicated settings page in twtGUI, so you must edit config.toml manually to change settings such as your nickname or the path to your twtxt.txt file.

However, feeds you follow can be managed through the Following page inside twtGUI.

If you need to edit config.toml, you can find it in your system’s configuration directory:

Platform	File path
Windows	C:\Users\yourname\AppData\Roaming\taxevaiden\twtGUI\config\config.toml
macOS	/Users/yourname/Library/Application Support/com.taxevaiden.twtGUI/config.toml
Linux	/home/yourname/.config/twtgui/config.toml

The configuration file is divided into three main sections:

• [appearance]
• [metadata]
• [paths]

---

[appearance]

Contains settings for the appearance of twtGUI.

• theme The UI theme. You won't usually need to set this, as there is a theme-switcher built into twtGUI. Accepted values:
  • light - Light
  • dark - Dark
  • system - Light or Dark, depends on system theme
  • catppuccinmocha - Catppuccin Mocha (default)
  • catppuccinfrappe - Catppuccin Frappe
  • catppuccinmacchiato - Catppuccin Macchiato
  • catppuccinlatte - Catppuccin Latte
  • gruvboxlight - Gruvbox Light
  • gruvboxdark - Gruvbox Dark
  • gruvboxsystem - Gruvbox Light or Dark, depends on system theme

[metadata]

Contains information about you and your twtxt identity.

These values are stored locally in config.toml, and will be automatically written to your twtxt.txt file when saved.

• urls
  A list of public URLs pointing to your twtxt.txt file.
  Typically this contains a single URL.

• nick
  Your display name.

• avatar
  A URL pointing to an image, used as your profile picture.

• description
  A short bio or description of your feed.

• kind
  The type of feed.
  Common values include:

  • "bot" - automated account
  • "rss" - RSS-to-twtxt feed
    If not set, the feed is assumed to be human-managed.

• follows
  A list of feeds you follow (managed by twtGUI). Each entry contains:

  • text - The display name of the feed.
  • url - The feed’s twtxt.txt URL.

• following
  The number of feeds this feed follows.
  This is automatically set by twtGUI based on the number of entries in follows.

• links
  Additional profile links. Each entry contains:

  • text - A label (for example, "GitHub")
  • url - The associated URL
    These may be shown on a user’s profile page.

• prev
  A list of archived feeds. Each entry contains:

  • text - The hash of the last tweet in the feed.
  • url - The feed’s twtxt.txt URL.

• refresh
  A suggested refresh interval (in seconds) for how often clients should fetch the feed.

Example

[metadata]
nick = "john"
urls = ["https://example.com/twtxt.txt"]
description = "My personal twtxt feed"
avatar = "https://example.com/avatar.png"
kind = "user"
refresh = 600

[[metadata.follows]]
text = "jane"
url = "https://someone.dev/twtxt.txt"

[[metadata.links]]
text = "GitHub"
url = "https://github.com/username"

[[metadata.prev]]
text = "abc1234"
url = "https://old.example.com/twtxt.txt"

# written into twtxt.txt

# nick = john
# url = https://example.com/twtxt.txt
# description = My personal twtxt feed
# avatar = https://example.com/avatar.png
# kind = user
# refresh = 600
# following = 1
# follow = jane https://someone.dev/twtxt.txt
# link = GitHub https://github.com/username
# prev = abc1234 https://example.com/twtxt-2017-2-7.txt

2026-03-01T03:10:17Z	Hello everyone!
2026-03-01T04:21:27Z	(#abc1234) Hello?
2026-03-01T04:21:57Z	@<taxevaiden https://taxevaiden.pages.dev/twtxt.txt>?

[paths]

Contains the filepaths to three files: the local twtxt.txt file, and three scripts.

• twtxt
  The filepath to your local twtxt.txt file. New posts are appended to this file when you publish a tweet.

• pre_tweet_script
  The filepath to a script to run before posting a tweet.

• tweet_script The filepath to a script to run when posting a tweet.
  When this is set, the tweet is not automatically appended to twtxt.txt by twtGUI and is instead passed to the tweet_script as an argument. The timestamp is not passed to the script, so your script must handle timestamp formatting itself.

• post_tweet_script
  The filepath to a script to run after posting a tweet.

Example

[paths]
twtxt = "C:/path/to/twtxt.txt"
pre_tweet_script = "C:/path/to/pre_tweet_script.bat"
tweet_script = "C:/path/to/tweet_script.bat"
post_tweet_script = "C:/path/to/post_tweet_script.bat"

Script files should be in .bat format on Windows, and in .sh format on Unix-like systems.

---

License

twtGUI is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

twtGUI uses the Iosevka font family, which is licensed under the SIL Open Font License. See the Iosevka repository for details.