GlossPop

English | 简体中文

Swipe-to-translate for macOS. Select text anywhere, press one hotkey, and get an LLM translation that's also a dictionary and a grammar tutor — streamed into a near-cursor panel that never touches your clipboard and never steals focus.

⬇️  Download GlossPop — free, notarised by Apple, auto-updates

The UI follows your system language — English, 简体中文, 繁體中文, 日本語, 한국어, Français, Deutsch, Español, Русский.

What makes it different

Most swipe-translators are fragile (resident event taps that lag the system, clipboard pollution) and just dump a flat translation. GlossPop is input-aware and reliable:

• 🧠 It adapts to what you select. A word or phrase → a full dictionary entry (pronunciation, part-of-speech senses, examples, synonyms, idioms). A sentence → translation + analysis: subject/predicate/object, grammar points, and notes on idioms or tricky terms — all explained in your language, not the source's. A whole paragraph keeps the translation and notes but skips the per-sentence breakdown. Plain phrases → a clean streamed translation.
• 🔑 Your model. Translation runs on the LLM you choose — bring your own key to any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (cloud, a relay, or a local Ollama / LM Studio), or on-device Apple Foundation Models where available.
• 🔒 Zero side-effects. Accessibility-first capture — no resident CGEventTap, the clipboard is never touched by default, focus never leaves your app. A provenance badge tells you exactly where your text went.

Install

1. Download the latest GlossPop-x.y.z.dmg from the Releases page (notarized by Apple).
2. Open the DMG and drag GlossPop to Applications.
3. Launch it — a 💬 icon appears in the menu bar. On first run, grant Accessibility when prompted (System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Accessibility ▸ enable GlossPop). This is how it reads your selection without the clipboard.

Updates are delivered automatically via Sparkle (or menu ▸ Check for Updates…).

Use

• Select text in any app → press ⌃⌘T → the panel pops up near your cursor.
• Esc or click away to dismiss. The selection in the source app stays intact.
• Open Settings… from the menu-bar icon to choose the target language, output mode, and translation engine.

Bring your own model (BYOK)

Settings ▸ Translation model:

1. Provider / Endpoint — any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (OpenAI, DeepSeek, your relay, or http://localhost:11434 for Ollama).
2. API key — stored in your macOS Keychain, never anywhere else.
3. Model — type it, or fetch the list from /v1/models; Test connection verifies it end-to-end.
4. Changes apply immediately — the first test on a new cloud host doubles as your one-time consent.

When the endpoint is a cloud/relay host, the panel's footer is badged “cloud” so you always know your text left the machine; loopback (localhost) is badged “on-device”. The UI is localised into English, 简体中文, 繁體中文, 日本語, 한국어, Français, Deutsch, Español and Русский, following your system language.

Privacy

• Zero clipboard by default, and the word/phrase path can run fully offline (macOS system dictionary). Nothing is ever sent to a cloud host until you configure one and confirm it once via Test connection.
• The optional Tier-2 “synthetic copy” fallback (for apps that don't expose selection, e.g. Safari/Electron) is off by default; when on, it restores your clipboard immediately.
• Your selection isn't stored or logged unless you turn on Translation History (off by default; kept locally in plain text, clearable anytime).

Build from source

Requires Xcode 26+ and XcodeGen (brew install xcodegen).

make build   # xcodegen generate + xcodebuild
make run     # build + launch
make test    # unit tests

Maintainer release pipeline (Developer ID sign → notarize → DMG → Sparkle appcast) lives in scripts/release.sh.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md. macOS 15+, Universal (Apple Silicon + Intel), Swift 6 (strict concurrency).

License

AGPL-3.0-or-later. © 2026 wanruncong.