MoePeek

A lightweight, native macOS menu bar translator. Select text, get translation.

English | 中文

MoePeek Preview

Features

Translation Modes

Select & Translate: Select text in any app, get instant translation in a floating panel
OCR Screenshot: Capture a screen region and translate the recognized text
Clipboard Translation: Translate whatever's on your clipboard
Manual Input: Type or paste text to translate on demand

Built-in Translation Services

Free	API	LLM	System
Google Translate	DeepL	OpenAI	Apple Translation
Bing Translate	Baidu	Anthropic	(macOS 15+, on-device)
Youdao Translate	NiuTrans	DeepSeek
	Caiyun	OpenRouter
	DeepLX	智谱 GLM
		Ollama (local)
		LM Studio (local)

And More

Smart language detection across 14 languages, auto-flips translation direction
Text-to-speech playback for translated text using Apple's built-in speech synthesis
Non-activating floating panels that never steal focus from your current app
3-tier text grabbing: Accessibility API → AppleScript → Clipboard fallback
Fully customizable keyboard shortcuts
Built-in auto-updater via Sparkle

Why MoePeek

~5 MB app size: Pure Swift 6, only 3 dependencies. No Electron, no WebView.
~50 MB background memory: Systematic memory leak prevention for long-running sessions.
Privacy-friendly: Apple Translation runs entirely on-device.
Open source: AGPL-3.0 licensed. Issues and feedback welcome.

Limitations & Alternatives

MoePeek is a personal, AI vibe-coded side project. It works well for my own use cases, but it's not designed to be a polished, production-grade tool — there are plenty of edge cases in text selection and window handling that commercial tools have spent years ironing out, and MoePeek likely misses many of them.

If you need a more robust solution, these apps are excellent:

Clicknow — feature-rich, actively maintained selection translator
PopClip — the gold standard for macOS text selection actions, with a rich extension ecosystem

Installation

Download the latest .dmg or .zip from GitHub Releases and drag MoePeek.app into /Applications.

Usage

On first launch, MoePeek walks you through an onboarding flow to grant the required permissions:

Accessibility: Needed to grab selected text via the Accessibility API
Screen Recording: Needed for OCR screenshot translation

Default Shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
Translate Selection	`⌥ D`
OCR Screenshot	`⌥ S`
Manual Input	`⌥ A`
Clipboard Translation	`⌥ V`

All shortcuts can be customized in Settings → General.

PopClip Integration

If you use PopClip, you can translate selected text with a single click from the PopClip bar.

Install the extension:

Make sure MoePeek is installed and running.
Download MoePeek.popclipext.zip from the latest release and unzip it.
Remove the quarantine attribute so macOS allows the extension to load:
```
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /path/to/MoePeek.popclipext
```
Double-click MoePeek.popclipext — PopClip will install it automatically.
Select any text in any app → click the MoePeek icon in the PopClip bar.

Note: If PopClip shows an error, also make sure MoePeek.app itself has been un-quarantined — see the FAQ below. (Related issue)

FAQ

"MoePeek.app is damaged and can't be opened"

The app is not notarized with Apple, so macOS Gatekeeper may block it. This does not mean the file is corrupted. To fix:

Open Terminal
Run:

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/MoePeek.app

Then launch the app as usual.

Onboarding screen doesn't appear / want to re-trigger onboarding

Reset all user preferences to restore the first-launch state:

defaults delete com.nahida.MoePeek

Then relaunch the app.

Contributing

Issues and PRs are welcome! A few things to know:

I work a day job, so I may not respond immediately — I typically batch-process issues and PRs on weekends.
Feel free to fork and build your own version. Per the AGPL-3.0 license, derivative works must also be open source.

Acknowledgements

MoePeek was inspired by Easydict and Bob. Thank you for paving the way.

Built with:

KeyboardShortcuts by Sindre Sorhus
Defaults by Sindre Sorhus
Sparkle for auto-updates

Contributors

Sponsor

Star History

License

AGPL-3.0