quick-translate

A macOS menu-bar-resident translation tool powered by local LLM.

Features

• Menu bar resident — always accessible via global shortcut (⌘⇧T) or menu bar icon
• Floating panel — stays above other windows, resizable, remembers position and size
• Two-pane UI — source text on the left, editable translation on the right
• Local LLM — uses OpenAI-compatible API (LM Studio by default)
• Auto language detection — detects source language and translates to the other direction
• Privacy first — all processing stays on your machine
• Glossary — custom term mappings managed via Settings UI
• Configurable shortcut — change the global hotkey in Settings

Requirements

• macOS 14 Sonoma or later
• LM Studio with a loaded model (default: google/gemma-4-26b-a4b)

Installation

Download QuickTranslate.app from Releases.

Or build from source:

make build-app
open dist/QuickTranslate.app

Usage

1. Launch QuickTranslate — it appears in the menu bar
2. Press ⌘⇧T (or click the menu bar icon → Show / Hide Panel) to open the translation panel
3. Type or paste text in the left pane
4. Translation appears in the right pane after a short delay, or press ⌘ Return to translate immediately
5. Edit the translation if needed, then click Copy to copy to clipboard
6. Press ⌘⇧T or ⌘W to close the panel

Configuration

Open Settings from the menu bar icon. Two tabs are available:

General

Setting	Default	Description
Endpoint	http://localhost:1234/v1	OpenAI-compatible API base URL
API Key	(empty)	Bearer token for API authentication (optional)
Model	google/gemma-4-26b-a4b	LLM model name
Target Language	Japanese	Default translation target (also selectable in the panel)
Debounce	2.0s	Auto-translate delay after typing stops
Toggle Panel	⌘⇧T	Global keyboard shortcut (customizable)

Glossary

Add, edit, and delete term mappings directly in the UI. Entries are saved automatically to:

~/Library/Application Support/QuickTranslate/glossary.json

Build

Prerequisites

• Xcode 15.2 or later (includes Swift 5.9+ toolchain and macOS SDK)
  • Or install Command Line Tools: xcode-select --install
  • Verify SDK is available: xcrun --show-sdk-path
• make

Commands

make build        # Build release binary
make build-app    # Build .app bundle → dist/
make test         # Run tests
make clean        # Remove build artifacts

License

MIT