Highlight a word or a sentence in any application. When you release the mouse, a small translate button appears beside the selection; click it and the translation opens right there, without stealing focus from what you were reading.
It is the convenience of a browser translation extension, except it works in your mail client, your PDF reader, and your terminal — not just in a browser tab.
- Translate from any application. Selection is read through the operating system's accessibility layer, so it works in native controls and in embedded web surfaces alike.
- Never steals focus. The button and the result render in a non-activating overlay, so the window you were reading stays active.
- Automatic language detection, with a source-language override on the result when the guess is wrong.
- Spoken pronunciation for both the original and the translation, using the operating system's built-in voices.
- Quick translate panel. Click the menu-bar icon to type or paste text directly, without selecting anything.
- Local vocabulary study. Eligible translated words and short phrases build a private on-device wordbook with pronunciation, recall tracking, related-word discovery, downloaded textbooks, and bidirectional practice. When a selection sits in a clear sentence, that sentence is saved as the word's example.
- Stays out of the way. Lives in the menu bar with no Dock icon, and can start at login.
- English and Simplified Chinese UI. Switch immediately from Settings or the menu-bar menu, with CJK typography tuned for desktop reading.
- Choose your translation service. Google Cloud, Baidu Translate, and Microsoft Translator (global or China cloud) share one provider-neutral native boundary. Provider credentials stay in isolated system-vault slots.
Languages: English, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, French, German and Spanish, in any direction, plus automatic detection of the source.
Every eligible word or short phrase you translate can become part of a private, on-device learning loop. Repeated lookups measure demand; submitted practice answers measure recall. Sentence-like selections are translated normally but are never added to the wordbook.
The study window brings four tools together:
- My wordbook keeps the source and translation, language direction, lookup demand, recall score, pronunciation controls, and provenance-backed part-of-speech metadata. Entries can be corrected or removed.
- Downloaded textbooks start with an embedded offline Simplified Chinese starter and provide five additional learning paths, including everyday, academic, TOEIC, business, and general-reference vocabulary. A textbook hit is copied into your personal wordbook.
- Related words combines roots and shared meanings across your wordbook and compatible downloaded textbooks, shows the saved selection sentence when one exists, and keeps English as the study anchor when Chinese is translated to English.
- Practice tests word-to-meaning, meaning-to-word, or a random mix. Related words and the active textbook supply more challenging distractors, while mastered words leave the active queue until their recall fades.
 |
 |
| Choose a focused Simplified Chinese textbook. | Explore connections across personal and downloaded vocabulary. |
Note
Translation lookup follows a local-first order: personal wordbook → active downloaded textbook → configured online translation provider.
| Platform | Status |
|---|---|
| macOS 11+ | Supported |
| Windows 10/11 x64 | Packaged (unsigned NSIS) — compile, CI, and installer smoke passed; interactive UI fixtures remain manual-only |
| Linux | Not planned |
Note
Windows 11 25H2 x64 (build 26200.9168) produced
Desktop Translator_0.3.0_x64-setup.exe via pnpm tauri build --bundles nsis.
Silent current-user install, launch, reinstall, and uninstall succeeded.
UI Automation selection, the non-activating overlay against another app, SAPI,
the credential prompt, start-at-login, and Vocabulary Study chrome were not
exercised interactively on this host. See
docs/platform-test-matrix.md and
docs/windows-signing-and-supply-chain.md.
Download the .dmg from the
latest release
and drag the app into Applications. The build is universal, so one download
runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
Important
Releases are not signed with an Apple Developer ID, so Gatekeeper will refuse the first launch. Clear the quarantine flag to allow it:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Desktop Translator.app"Download Desktop Translator_*_x64-setup.exe from the same Releases page and
run it. The installer is NSIS, current-user, and fetches WebView2 with the
Microsoft download bootstrapper when the runtime is missing. It does not
require Node.js, Rust, Python, or an administrator account.
Important
Windows builds are not Authenticode-signed. SmartScreen may warn on first
run; use More info → Run anyway. See
docs/windows-signing-and-supply-chain.md.
Two things are needed before the first online translation. Vocabulary Study is usable immediately because its starter English → Simplified Chinese textbook is embedded in the app.
1. Grant Accessibility permission. The app reads the selected text and its on-screen position through the macOS Accessibility API. On first launch it will point you at System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility; enable Desktop Translator there, then quit the app from the menu bar and open it again. macOS does not apply a new Accessibility grant to a process that is already running, which is why the warning can remain after the switch is on.
Important
Releases are ad-hoc signed, so the code identity changes with every version. macOS ties an Accessibility grant to that identity, which means an update silently invalidates the old grant even though the switch still looks enabled. After updating, remove the stale Desktop Translator entry from the Accessibility list and add the new app again.
Note
No screen capture is involved and no Screen Recording permission is requested. The app reads only the text you selected, only after you finish selecting it.
2. Choose and configure a translation provider. Open Settings from the menu-bar menu, choose a service, and use its native credential prompt:
| Provider | Configuration | Network note |
|---|---|---|
| Baidu Translate | APP ID + secret key | Recommended for users in mainland China |
| Microsoft Translator | Subscription key, cloud profile, optional region | China cloud requires an Azure China account |
| Google Cloud | Cloud Translation API key | Availability depends on the user's network |
Tip
Restrict each credential to translation, and set the provider's quota or budget. Requests use only the service currently selected in Settings; the app never silently falls back to another online provider.
Credentials are entered in native secure prompts and stored in the macOS Keychain or Windows Credential Manager. They never pass through the WebView and are never written to the settings file.
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Select text, then release the mouse | A translate button appears beside the selection |
| Click the button | The translation opens in place |
| Change the source language on the result | Retranslates with the language you chose |
| Click the speaker icon | Speaks the text with a system voice |
| Click the menu-bar icon | Opens the quick translate panel for typed text |
| Open Vocabulary Study from the menu-bar menu | Reviews your wordbook, textbooks, connections, and practice queue |
| Menu-bar right-click | Settings, UI language, enable/disable, start at login, quit |
Nothing is sent anywhere until you click the translate button. Selections in password and other secure fields are ignored. Eligible words and short lexical phrases, their successful translations, lookup counts, and submitted practice results are stored locally in the application's SQLite database. Sentence-like text is never added to the wordbook. The database is not exposed to the interface and is not synchronized to a cloud service.
Downloaded textbook files and related-word discovery stay on this device. Connections combine conservative root matching with shared meanings from the personal wordbook and compatible downloaded textbooks. The feature does not use an LLM or embeddings. Textbook attribution and source links remain visible in the interface.
应用只有在你主动点击翻译后才会调用翻译服务。密码框等安全控件中的内容会被忽略。 符合条件的单词和短词组、成功的翻译结果、查询次数以及已提交的练习结果会保存在本机的 SQLite 数据库中，用于词汇本和复习排序；句子式文本不会写入词汇本。数据库不会暴露给 界面层，也不会同步到云端。只有主动提交练习答案才会改变记忆分数，重复查询只会记录 查询需求。下载的简体中文词书与相关词检索都保留在本机；翻译查询会依次使用个人词汇本、 当前启用的下载词书和在线翻译服务。
Prerequisites: Node.js 20+, pnpm 10+, and a stable Rust toolchain. Everything else comes from the lockfiles.
pnpm install
pnpm tauri dev| Command | Purpose |
|---|---|
pnpm tauri dev |
Run the app against a live-reloading renderer |
pnpm check |
Typecheck, frontend tests, and renderer build |
pnpm test:platform |
Rust unit and integration tests |
pnpm tauri build |
Produce a .app and .dmg on macOS |
pnpm tauri build --bundles nsis |
Produce the Windows x64 NSIS setup exe |
Tip
On macOS, run tools/macos/create-dev-signing-identity.sh
once. Development builds are otherwise ad-hoc signed with a new identity on
every rebuild, which makes macOS forget the Keychain and Accessibility grants
and prompt you again after each change. See
docs/macos-development-signing.md.
A Rust core owns everything that touches the operating system; a React renderer owns only what is drawn.
src/ React renderer (overlay, settings, quick panel)
contracts/ipc.ts IPC contract, mirrored by src-tauri/src/contracts.rs
state/overlayMachine.ts Overlay lifecycle reducer
src-tauri/src/
coordinator.rs Selection and overlay state machine
overlay.rs, placement.rs Non-activating window and monitor-aware positioning
platform/macos, windows Accessibility, pointer, speech and window adapters
services/ Settings, credential vault, translation provider
docs/ Platform qualification and development notes
The renderer is never given provider credentials, never reads the selection itself, and communicates only through a narrow set of validated commands.
Built with Tauri 2, React and Rust. Online translation adapters support Google Cloud, Baidu Translate, and Microsoft Translator.