Awnsy is a small menu bar translator for macOS. Select text in any app, press ⌘C twice, and the translation appears right over the window. For text you can't select, like images, scanned PDFs or video, drag a box around it and Awnsy reads and translates it. The translation model lives inside the app and runs on your Mac. No account, no API key, works offline, and what you translate stays on your machine. If you prefer cloud quality, add your own OpenAI or Anthropic key.
Hi Product Hunt, I'm Alexey. 15 years of writing software, first Mac app, and I built it for myself before anyone else.
My work happens in languages that aren't my native one, and a lot of it lives in PDFs. Every unfamiliar paragraph meant copy, switch to a browser, paste, read, switch back. Dozens of times a day.
Awnsy puts the translation where you're reading. Select text in any app, press ⌘C twice, and the translation streams into a small popup over the window. Switch the language or the model right there, or have it read the result aloud. For text you can't select (images, scanned PDFs, video), drag a box around it. 78 languages.
The part I won't compromise on: the model runs on your Mac, not on a server. No account, no key, works offline, your text stays on your machine. I wrote a script to compare local translation models and kept the fastest as default, Hy-MT2 1.8B: about a second per sentence on an M1 MacBook Air. Larger 4B models scored about the same but ran 2 to 5 times slower. Want cloud quality instead? Bring your own OpenAI or Anthropic key, or point it at any OpenAI-compatible server like Ollama.
What it isn't: a dictionary. It's new, so no reviews yet. Needs macOS 15 and Apple Silicon.
Text translation is free. Screen area translation is free for 10 tries, then Pro at $1.99 a month, $14.99 a year or $29.99 once.
Hi Product Hunt, I'm Alexey. 15 years of writing software, first Mac app, and I built it for myself before anyone else.
My work happens in languages that aren't my native one, and a lot of it lives in PDFs. Every unfamiliar paragraph meant copy, switch to a browser, paste, read, switch back. Dozens of times a day.
Awnsy puts the translation where you're reading. Select text in any app, press ⌘C twice, and the translation streams into a small popup over the window. Switch the language or the model right there, or have it read the result aloud. For text you can't select (images, scanned PDFs, video), drag a box around it. 78 languages.
The part I won't compromise on: the model runs on your Mac, not on a server. No account, no key, works offline, your text stays on your machine. I wrote a script to compare local translation models and kept the fastest as default, Hy-MT2 1.8B: about a second per sentence on an M1 MacBook Air. Larger 4B models scored about the same but ran 2 to 5 times slower. Want cloud quality instead? Bring your own OpenAI or Anthropic key, or point it at any OpenAI-compatible server like Ollama.
What it isn't: a dictionary. It's new, so no reviews yet. Needs macOS 15 and Apple Silicon.
Text translation is free. Screen area translation is free for 10 tries, then Pro at $1.99 a month, $14.99 a year or $29.99 once.
Product Hunt readers get 3 months of Pro free with the code PRODUCTHUNT, or just open this link: https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6805945103&code=PRODUCTHUNT (new subscribers, until Oct 19).
One question for you: which language do you translate most, and did it work? That's how I decide which languages to test next.