Magpie · Feature spotlight
Select to translate — without leaving the page
Come across an unfamiliar word while reading, and the old routine kicks in: copy, switch apps, paste, look it up, switch back — then find your place again. Magpie folds all of that into the selection itself: select text in any app, the floating bar appears on the spot, tap Translate, and the translation shows up right beside it — ready to save into Obsidian when you're done.
Select or double-click · direction detected automatically · multiple translation services · results can go straight into Obsidian
The flow
The complete flow — select, translate, keep
The animation walks the full path: select text → tap Translate → read the result → save it into Obsidian, without ever leaving the app you're reading in.
Reviewing right after class feels productive, yet memory research points the other way. Spaced repetition works because forgetting is part of learning.
–整理昨晚的读书笔记
–术语：consolidation → 记忆巩固
Select
Select or double-click text in any app — the floating bar pops up right beside the selection, without interrupting it.
Translate
Tap Translate — direction is detected automatically and the translation shows in real time, no language picking.
Read the result
The translation lands in a standalone window with terminology notes; pin it, drag it, keep it around.
Save to Obsidian
Tap Save to Obsidian and the excerpt is appended to the daily note from a template — all local.
Select & Translate
Reading in another language: a word, a sentence — select it and it's translated
What breaks your reading isn't the long sentence — it's the interruption: select a word, switch to a dictionary app, look it up, switch back, and the line you were on is gone. Now select text and the floating bar appears right beside it — a word, a phrase or a whole sentence. Tap Translate, and the translation and notes sit next to the original.
Many languages, direction detected
Select foreign text and it becomes Chinese; select Chinese and it becomes English — no language picking.
Multiple translation services
AI translation, Baidu Translate and DeepL, switchable anytime with a default you set; the model service behind AI translation is yours to configure — save several and swap freely.
Terminology & usage notes
Beyond the translation, results come with terminology and usage notes — long sentences show why they were rendered that way.
Standalone result window
The translation stays in its own window — pinnable, draggable, with size and position remembered.
During sleep, the consolidation of new memories depends on rhythmic dialogue between the hippocampus and the cortex.
Capture & Translate
PDFs, images, videos — text you can't select? Box it: extracted and translated
Scanned PDFs, images, video subtitles, app interfaces — text that was never selectable, where copy-paste simply fails. Press ⌥S and drag a box over the screen region: the text is recognized on your machine. Press ⌥T and it's translated as soon as recognition finishes. Screenshots are never uploaded — screen content stays on your computer.
Four OCR hotkeys
⌥S capture, ⌥T translate, ⌥E explain, ⌥D summarize — the matching action runs when recognition finishes, keys remappable.
System OCR, on-device
Built-in system text recognition, fast and local; screenshots are never uploaded or stored.
Pinned screenshots
Pin a screenshot to the screen for re-recognition; copy, search and AI actions all work.
Chapter 3 · Sleep and Memory
Memory consolidation during sleep depends on the rhythmic dialogue between the hippocampus and the cortex.
Collect & Keep
What you scroll past, into your own knowledge base
A subtitle flashing past in a video, a paragraph that hits home in a long article, a method list in someone's post — you save a screenshot, tap collect, and never open it again. The problem with fragments was never collecting them; it's that they have nowhere to go. Box-select any text on screen, lift it out, and write it straight into your notes from a template — collecting and keeping in one step.
Spacing effect: review just before you forget.
真正有效的复习，发生在快要忘记的时候。
分享 5 个亲测有效的记忆方法
Lift text from anywhere
Video subtitles, images, chat history, long articles — anything visible on screen can be captured.
Usable the moment it's out
Copy, search, translate, summarize, or hand it to a custom action to reshape it.
A place to land
Write it into your notes from a template instead of losing it in your photo album and bookmarks.
已选中
Spaced repetition: review chapter 4 by 2026-10-20.
间隔重复：10 月 20 日前复习第四章。
写入内容会出现在这里
Excerpts into the daily note
Original and translation append to today's note from the template, kept by date.
Tasks with due dates
Dates in the selection are detected when a task is saved — nothing to fill in by hand.
Knowledge cards, one file each
Words, definitions and methods become standalone cards titled from the selection, building your own deck.
Direct writes currently support Obsidian; integrations with Notion, Apple Notes and more are in development.
Who it's for
Who uses it: anyone who works with text
Translation is just the action; the value depends on what you're reading and what you keep. The same moves, in different daily lives.
Language learners
Look up words and example sentences on the spot, keep translations and definitions as vocabulary cards, and build a deck that's actually yours.
Researchers & students
Box-select text in scanned papers and slide screenshots; translated passages go straight into reading notes — no window juggling for citations and checks.
Creators & info keepers
Pull quotes and material out of video subtitles and long articles; translate, verify and organize in one pass — nothing lost in screenshots.
And every small moment
Verification codes, tracking numbers, manual screenshots — scattered text chores, one set of actions.
FAQ
About select & translate
For anything else, open an issue on the GitHub repository.
What do I need to set up for translation?
Pick any of the three services: AI translation connects to your own model service (address, model name and key are yours to fill in); Baidu Translate and DeepL need your own keys. Set a default service either way. Without translation configured, copy, search, OCR and other local actions still work.
Does translating pull me out of the current app?
No. The floating bar and the result window sit above the current app without taking focus. The page you're reading stays exactly as it was; typing and scrolling go on undisturbed.
Is the selected text uploaded?
Only when you use AI or online translation services — the selection goes to the service you configured yourself. OCR and information extraction run on-device, and Magpie collects no usage data of any kind.
What if the text can't be selected?
Scanned PDFs, images and video subtitles were never selectable — use OCR translate instead: press ⌥T, drag a box over the region, and the recognized text is translated automatically. Works for screenshots, scanned pages and app interfaces.
Translation, built into the selection
Free forever, no account. After installing, grant the accessibility permissions when prompted and you're ready to select and translate.
Available for macOS and Windows · versions and release notes on GitHub Releases