WordPop 2.1.1

Two new features and two fixes.

• Shortcuts actions. The Shortcuts app now has three WordPop actions: Look Up Word (shows the popup and returns the first definition), Find Synonyms (returns a list) and Check Text (returns the notes on a passage as Markdown). They also show in Spotlight and work with Siri ("Check text with WordPop").
• Underlines while you type (beta). Choose Underline Wordy Phrases in TextEdit and Notes in the menu bar menu. Wordy phrases, formal words, hidden verbs, clichés and your style-rule words get a dotted purple underline as you type. Point at one to see the fix. Off by default.
• Fix: changing a shortcut. When you pressed the other WordPop shortcut in a shortcut recorder in Settings, it ran a lookup. Now the recorder gets the key and says that the shortcut is already in use.
• Release 2.1.0 was not published: its build failed on the CI's Xcode version.

Full Changelog: v2.0.1...v2.1.1

WordPop 2.0.1

Fixes for the open issues from 2.0.

• Fits agree with the sense. "Fits your sentence" now uses the same meaning as the definition marked "In your sentence". Before, "The lease runs until May" could mark one sense and suggest words for another. The same sentence now always gets the same answer.
• Read-only text. When you choose a word for text that you cannot change (a web page, a list), WordPop copies it and tells you, and does not paste into nothing.
• Shorter long entries. Words like "run" show sub-senses only under the first sense, and two synonym groups. Show all brings back the rest.
• Long Quick Search queries wrap onto up to three lines and do not scroll out of sight.

Full Changelog: v2.0.0...v2.0.1

WordPop 2.0

WordPop 2.0 is a redesign. The features are the same; what changes is how they are laid out, how they look, and how you find them. It was reviewed in two rounds by separate visual, usability and accessibility reviews, with personas for a student, a technical writer and a novelist.

A new layout

• Word popup: the answer first. Definitions, then the best words for your sentence and the tone buttons. Everything else sits in three groups that open with a click and stay as you left them: Word choice, Usage and Sound. A closed group names what is inside. Long entries such as "run" show their first senses with "Show all".
• Notes on a passage by priority. Mistakes (with one Fix button at the top), Clarity (hard sentences, passive voice, rhythm) and Style (weak, repeated and crutch words, fiction; closed until opened).
• Four tools, always in the same place: Rewrite (reframe, add a sentence, transition), Check (how it reads, main point), Text and Translate. A tool that cannot run says why.
• No repeats. Synonyms leave out the words under Fits your sentence; long and above-grade sentences become one Hard sentences note; adverbs and hedges become one Weak words note.
• Settings in four tabs: General, Word Popup, Passage Notes and Style Rules, with a writer profile and the status of your rules file.

A new look

• Four colors, each with one meaning: blue-teal for words, green for what fits, amber for what to review, red for opposites. All reach 4.5:1 contrast.
• Two chip styles, one link style, gray section labels, a filled Fix button, and checkmarks on chosen fixes.
• Rare words carry a "rare" tag instead of looking disabled. Text fades under the header when it scrolls.

Easier to find

• A welcome window on first launch, with both shortcuts, a sample word and passage to try, the clicks worth knowing, and a writer profile (Everyday, Student, Technical, Fiction). Welcome & Tips… in the menu opens it again.
• A one-line footer explains click, ⌥-click and ⇧-click until you have used them.
• Quick Search shows its modes (Describe, Phrase, Pattern) as chips, and the mode you are in.
• The menu bar menu shows the lookup shortcut and has Quick Search.
• The back button names the word it goes back to.

Accessibility and keyboard

• VoiceOver labels on every icon button, named actions for Replace and Compare, readable fix chips ("Change recieve to receive"), a described rhythm chart, and announcements for the popup, Quick Search rows and messages.
• ⌘Return applies fixes, ⌘1 to ⌘3 open the groups, and with Full Keyboard Access Tab reaches every control. A new Extra Large text size.

Safer

• If the app you selected in is no longer in front, Replace and Fix put the text on the clipboard and say so, instead of doing nothing.
• A phrase with no dictionary entry no longer falls back to its first word ("a").

Install

1. Download WordPop.zip below, unzip it, and move WordPop.app to your Applications folder.
2. Open WordPop. Because the app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID, macOS says it cannot verify it. Click Done, open System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, click Open Anyway next to the message about WordPop, and confirm.
3. When WordPop asks, grant Accessibility permission in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility. WordPop needs it to read your selected text.

Updating from an earlier version: macOS treats the new build as a different app, so the old Accessibility permission stops working even though it still shows as on. Remove WordPop from the Accessibility list with the − button, then open WordPop and grant permission again.

The Apple Intelligence features need macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon with Apple Intelligence turned on. Everything else works on macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel.

WordPop 1.5.0

WordPop 1.5.0 adds seven tools: a usage check in Quick Search, Translate, Expand, describing words, sounds-like words, fiction notes and a short guide behind each note. The app download is about 40 MB larger, for the example sentences.

New

• Is this phrase used? In Quick Search, start with a quote mark: "comprised of shows how many of about 400,000 example sentences use it, with a few of them. Compare phrases with |: "different than | different from gives 20 and 149. The sentences are from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR).
• Translate. A Translate chip in the Tools row (macOS 26 or later) uses Apple's on-device Translation framework. macOS downloads each language once, in System Settings > General > Language & Region > Translation Languages; the popup says when one is missing and opens that page.
• Expand. For a selected sentence: Add an example, Add an analogy, Add a counterpoint, Explain more. The on-device model adds one sentence after yours, which stays word for word. Check any fact it adds.
• Describing words. With Apple Intelligence, adjectives for a noun ("rain" → steady, torrential, pouring) and nouns for an adjective ("eerie" → silence, presence, glow).
• Sounds like. Words that sound the same: "their" → there, they're; "pair" → pear, pare.
• Fiction notes. Turn on Fiction in Preferences for dialogue share, adverbs on tags ("said angrily"), tags other than "said", filter words ("saw", "felt") and emotions told ("felt nervous"). Off by default.
• What a note means. An ⓘ next to each note's title opens a short guide with an example.

Fixed

• The Tools row now wraps instead of breaking chip labels in two.
• Title Case is offered only for a headline, not for a sentence that ends with a period.

Install

1. Download WordPop.zip below, unzip it, and move WordPop.app to your Applications folder.
2. Open WordPop. Because the app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID, macOS says it cannot verify it. Click Done, open System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, click Open Anyway next to the message about WordPop, and confirm.
3. When WordPop asks, grant Accessibility permission in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility. WordPop needs it to read your selected text.

Updating from an earlier version: macOS treats the new build as a different app, so the old Accessibility permission stops working even though it still shows as on. Remove WordPop from the Accessibility list with the − button, then open WordPop and grant permission again.

The Apple Intelligence features need macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon with Apple Intelligence turned on. Everything else works on macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel.

WordPop 1.4.0

WordPop 1.4.0 adds a target reading grade, a main point check, word families and a way to copy the notes on a passage.

New

• Target reading grade. Choose a target grade in Preferences (Grade 5 to 12). The summary line shows it next to the passage's grade, and an "Above grade 8" note lists the hardest sentences of 12 words or more, each with "Split it".
• Main point. With Apple Intelligence, the Main point chip in the Tools row gives the passage's main point in one sentence and says which sentence states it. If that is not the first one, the note says so: readers who stop early miss it.
• Word family. The popup lists the related forms of a word, nouns first: "decide" → decision, decisive, decisively; "quick" → quickness, quickly. From WordNet, offline.
• Copy notes as Markdown. A link at the bottom of the notes on a passage copies them as a short Markdown report, one line per kind of note, to paste into a review comment or a message.

Fixed

• Sentence case was offered for ordinary prose, and it would have lowercased day names such as "Friday". It now shows only for text that looks title-cased or is in capitals, and it keeps day and month names.
• The summary line at the top of the notes was cut short when a tool opened below it. It now wraps.

Install

1. Download WordPop.zip below, unzip it, and move WordPop.app to your Applications folder.
2. Open WordPop. Because the app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID, macOS says it cannot verify it. Click Done, open System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, click Open Anyway next to the message about WordPop, and confirm.
3. When WordPop asks, grant Accessibility permission in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility. WordPop needs it to read your selected text.

Updating from an earlier version: macOS treats the new build as a different app, so the old Accessibility permission stops working even though it still shows as on. Remove WordPop from the Accessibility list with the − button, then open WordPop and grant permission again.

The Apple Intelligence features need macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon with Apple Intelligence turned on. Everything else works on macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel.

WordPop 1.3.0

WordPop 1.3.0 adds eight writing tools: style rules with a Simplified Technical English preset, more specific words, hidden verbs, plain words, hedges, sentence starts, text tools and a "Not a typo" button. All of them work offline.

New

• Style rules. Pick a preset in Preferences (Simplified Technical English, ASD-STE100) and add your own rules with Edit My Rules…, one per line: leverage | use, very, —, max sentence words: 20, max paragraph sentences: 6, flag -ing words. Notes on a passage list what breaks the rules, and the fix button puts in the words you chose. The STE preset is a starter set of common unapproved words, not the full STE dictionary.
• More specific words. Nouns and verbs get a More specific row by sense, from WordNet: "laugh" → chuckle, giggle, guffaw; "car" → sedan, jeep, convertible.
• Hidden verbs. "made a decision" → decided, "have come to the conclusion" → have concluded, "performing an analysis of" → analyzing, in every form of the verb.
• Plain words. "utilize" → use, "commence" → start, "numerous" → many, fixed like wordy phrases.
• Hedges and filler. Notes on a passage list "just", "really", "I think", "sort of" and similar words, with counts.
• Sentence starts. The rhythm note says when one word starts many sentences ("I" starts 4 of 6 sentences).
• Text tools. Title Case (AP style), Sentence case, curly or straight quotes, and Join lines, under a selected headline or in the Text chip of the Tools row. Only the tools that would change the text show.
• Not a typo. A name or a term flagged as a typo can go into your Mac's spelling dictionary, so no app flags it again.

Install

1. Download WordPop.zip below, unzip it, and move WordPop.app to your Applications folder.
2. Open WordPop. Because the app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID, macOS says it cannot verify it. Click Done, open System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, click Open Anyway next to the message about WordPop, and confirm.
3. When WordPop asks, grant Accessibility permission in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility. WordPop needs it to read your selected text.

Updating from an earlier version: macOS treats the new build as a different app, so the old Accessibility permission stops working even though it still shows as on. Remove WordPop from the Accessibility list with the − button, then open WordPop and grant permission again.

The Apple Intelligence features need macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon with Apple Intelligence turned on. Everything else works on macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel.

WordPop 1.2.0

WordPop 1.2.0 makes the notes on a passage shorter and easier to scan, and lets you choose which of them show.

Changed

• One Tools row. Reframe, Tone and Transitions are now chips in one row that open one at a time. For a single sentence the notes are about 40% shorter.
• Reading grade in the summary line. The grade sits with the word and sentence counts at the top, so it no longer takes a section of its own.
• Choose the passage notes you want. Preferences has a new "Notes on a passage" group to hide the Tools row, consistency, wordy phrases, sentence rhythm, long sentences, passive voice, crutch words, adverbs or repeated words. A hidden wordy-phrase, consistency or crutch-word section is not checked at all, so none of its fixes can go into your text unseen. Spelling and grammar always show.
• Grammar is checked twice. The macOS checker often misses an agreement mistake ("They was") the first time it sees a sentence and finds it when asked again, so WordPop checks each passage a second time a moment later. It still misses some mistakes.

Fixed

• A reading grade just under zero showed as "-0.0".

The README has new screenshots and its features are grouped by what you do: look up a word, choose a better word, edit a passage, Quick Search, and your words and settings.

Install

1. Download WordPop.zip below, unzip it, and move WordPop.app to your Applications folder.
2. Open WordPop. Because the app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID, macOS says it cannot verify it. Click Done, open System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, click Open Anyway next to the message about WordPop, and confirm.
3. When WordPop asks, grant Accessibility permission in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility. WordPop needs it to read your selected text.

Updating from an earlier version: macOS treats the new build as a different app, so the old Accessibility permission stops working even though it still shows as on. Remove WordPop from the Accessibility list with the − button, then open WordPop and grant permission again.

The Apple Intelligence features need macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon with Apple Intelligence turned on. Everything else works on macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel.

WordPop 1.1.0

WordPop 1.1.0 turns the notes on a selected passage into an editor's pass. It finds typos, grammar mistakes, wordy phrases and mixed spellings, and one click fixes the ones you choose. Everything still runs on your Mac.

New

• Grammar notes. Mistakes the macOS checker finds, each with its correction: "a apple" → an, "They was" → were, "should of" → have. The checker misses many mistakes, so no note does not mean no mistake.
• Wordy phrases and clichés. "in order to" → to, "due to the fact that" → because, "needless to say" → remove, "low-hanging fruit" → easy wins.
• Consistency. Points out a word spelled two ways ("e-mail" and "email"), British and American spelling together ("colour" and "center"), mixed straight and curly quotes, mixed spacing after sentences, and acronyms used before they are spelled out. Pick a spelling, or British or American, to make the passage use it throughout. British and American spellings are no longer listed as typos.
• One Fix button applies the chosen typo, grammar, spelling and phrase fixes in one paste.
• Sentence rhythm. A bar for each sentence, long ones in red, with a note when several sentences in a row have the same length.
• Reframe a sentence. Select one sentence for Clearer, Shorter, Lead with the point and More confident. Needs Apple Intelligence.
• Transitions. For a selected sentence, pick a job (Contrast, Cause, Example and others) and a connector such as "However" or "As a result". Works offline.
• Tone check. "How will this come across?" says how a reader will likely take a passage (warm, neutral, curt, defensive and others) and which words make it read that way. Needs Apple Intelligence.
• Your crutch words. WordPop counts the words you replace from the popup. After three replacements it points them out in the popup and in passage notes. Clear History in the menu bar menu removes the counts.
• Repeated in this paragraph and Replace for a "Did you mean" spelling suggestion.

Faster and fixed

• The grammar check runs after the popup opens, so a long passage no longer delays it. The British and American check is about 20 times faster on long text, and the crutch-word check about 80 times faster.
• Fixed fixes that went wrong: a repeated sentence got every grammar fix in one place, a capital at the start of a sentence spread to other uses of a word, overlapping phrases could give "Due to that", removing a phrase could join paragraphs or break an emoji, and "So far" counted as a transition.

Install

1. Download WordPop.zip below, unzip it, and move WordPop.app to your Applications folder.
2. Open WordPop. Because the app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID, macOS says it cannot verify it. Click Done, open System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, click Open Anyway next to the message about WordPop, and confirm.
3. When WordPop asks, grant Accessibility permission in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility. WordPop needs it to read your selected text.

Updating from 1.0.x: macOS treats the new build as a different app, so the old Accessibility permission stops working even though it still shows as on. Remove WordPop from the Accessibility list with the − button, then open WordPop and grant permission again.

The Apple Intelligence features need macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon with Apple Intelligence turned on. Everything else works on macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel.

WordPop v1.0.1

WordPop is a writer's dictionary for the Mac. Select a word anywhere, press a hotkey, and get its definition, the synonyms that fit your sentence, rhymes, usage notes and more, then put a better word in place with one keystroke. Everything runs on your Mac; nothing you look up leaves it.

This first release is a universal app for Apple silicon and Intel Macs running macOS 14 or later.

Highlights

• Definitions from the dictionary built into macOS, with pronunciation, word forms, usage notes, phrases and origins.
• Synonyms by sense from the Oxford thesaurus that ships with macOS, tagged informal, archaic or British where it applies, with rare words dimmed.
• Replace in place: ⌥-click a word, or press ⌥Return, to put it over your selection in the same form ("ran" becomes "sprinted").
• Rhymes grouped by syllable count, plus near rhymes.
• Stronger words, inclusive alternatives and often-confused words (affect/effect).
• Quick Search with type-ahead, spelling suggestions with meanings, ?describe a word, and patterns such as con* : agree.
• Notes on a passage: reading grade, long sentences, passive voice, adverbs and repeated words.
• Starred words and a practice quiz.
• With Apple Intelligence (macOS 26 or later, on Apple silicon): synonyms that fit your sentence, the sense you mean, tone shifts, rhymes for your line, word comparisons, idiom explanations, example sentences and rewrite suggestions. These run on the on-device model.

Install

1. Download WordPop.zip below, unzip it, and move WordPop.app to your Applications folder.
2. Open WordPop. Because the app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID, macOS says it cannot verify it. Click Done, open System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, click Open Anyway next to the message about WordPop, and confirm.
3. When WordPop asks, grant Accessibility permission in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility. WordPop needs it to read your selected text.

The default shortcuts are ⌃⌥⌘D to look up the selection and ⌃⌥⌘S for Quick Search. You can change them from the menu bar icon under Preferences.

After an update, macOS treats the new build as a different app, so the old Accessibility permission stops working even though it still shows as on. Remove WordPop from the Accessibility list with the − button, then open WordPop and grant permission again.

WordPop v1.0

Superseded by v1.0.1, which is the same app built for both Apple silicon and Intel. This build runs on Apple silicon only.