Whitespace.
See who already built your idea — and the space they left open.

CLUSTER DESKTOP-SELECTED-TEXT · 33 ENTRIES · EARLIEST ENTRY 2026-08-13

Desktop instant translation tools

This cluster comprises desktop applications that translate user-selected text on the fly using cloud-based or large language model APIs, typically triggered via hotkeys or native integration. The dated history before the index start shows nine isolated single entries scattered across 2016 to 2026, with no discernible trend or consistent cadence. Traction is led by universal-translator-desktop (39 stars), closely followed by translation (38 stars), while butchi trails with 2 stars.

Entry timeline

ENTRY TIMELINE

APR 2018: 1APR 2023: 2OCT 2023: 1OCT 2024: 1MAY 2025: 1NOV 2025: 1FEB 2026: 1APR 2026: 1AUG 2026: 5SEP 2026: 13OCT 2026: 6
APR 2018OCT 2026

Each bar is the month a member carries, which is a creation date where the source published one and a crawl date otherwise. Nothing in the index was found before 11 August 2026, and coverage broadened sharply on 14–15 August, so a bar from then on reports how much we found that month, not how much was built; an earlier bar reports how far back a member's own source dated it — not how long we have been watching.

Members by activity

Activity signals, not revenue.

Build origin · 4 hand-coded · 9 unlabelled

Operator · 4 hobby · 7 open source · 2 unlabelled

Two labels per entry, never collapsed into one: how it was built, and who stands behind it. Counted over the 13 listed below. Unlabelled means nothing has decided yet — not that the answer is small.

  1. 21maclingo0★8 days—hobbyBrowser extension that translates selected text on a Mac and shows the translation in a popup near the selection, using on-device processing.
  2. 22LinguaDock0★10 days—hobbyAlways-on-top desktop translator that translates input into Simplified Chinese, English, Japanese, and Traditional Chinese simultaneously.
  3. 23language-learning-overlay1★1 mo—macOS desktop overlay that replaces on-screen text with foreign language translations in realtime, supporting multiple languages and local execution.
  4. 24typist-translator0★24 days—Desktop app that translates typed text in any Windows program via a shortcut key.
  5. 25trans0★1 mo—hand-codedhobbyDesktop translation tool that captures selected text and translates it using multiple cloud services.
  6. 26Lokalize0★3 molivehand-codedopen sourceDesktop computer-aided translation system that helps translators localize software and documents, including OpenDocument files, by extracting and merging translatable text.
  7. 27Qt Linguist0★6 mostaleliveopen sourceA desktop application that lets translators add and manage translations for Qt-based software.
  8. 28Klaro0★1 yrabandonedliveopen sourceDesktop translation application that converts text between languages for users of the KDE Plasma desktop.
  9. 29OmegaT0★2 yrabandonedliveopen sourceDesktop translation memory application for professional translators to manage glossaries and reuse previous translations across documents and projects.
  10. 30bableredit-bin0★8 mostaleliveopen sourceDesktop application for viewing and editing multi-language localization files used to translate software interfaces.
  11. 31Crow Translate0★1 yrabandonedlivehand-codedopen sourceA desktop application that translates text from screen or selection using multiple engines, with speech output and shortcuts.
  12. 32DeepQt0★3 yrabandonedlivehand-codedopen sourceDesktop application that translates plain text files and EPUB books through a translation service, with glossary-based term replacement for consistency.
  13. 33OPolyglot offline translator0★unknownlivehobbyOffline translator that converts typed, copied, or screen-captured text between languages using local translation and text recognition.

Ranked by traction, highest first, and paged 20 at a time — this is a window on the cluster, never the whole of it. Ties are broken by a stable id so a product cannot appear on two pages or fall between them. Browse every cluster.