How to translate selected text without leaving the app
Translating a message usually means leaving the message. Here is how to set up in-place translation once, and why telling the tool which languages you read is the whole configuration.
Step by step
- Set your native languageaiCat asks once, on first launch, and defaults to your system language.
- Add the languages you also useThese become the quick options in the translation selector.
- Select foreign textAnywhere — a message, a PDF, a code comment.
- Press Option+AYou get the translation plus up to ten keywords with transcriptions.
- Switch target language inlineThe selector in the result window changes the target without re-selecting the text.
Translate the thread without leaving the thread
Free to start, any language the model speaks, RTL included.
Why in-place translation changes the count, not the quality
With a translator in a tab, people translate the passages they cannot guess at and skim the rest. The skimmed ones are where the misunderstandings come from, and no amount of translation quality helps with a passage nobody translated.
Removing the round trip does not make the translation better. It makes it happen on the paragraphs you thought you had understood.
Set your languages once, then stop choosing
Download for free and select something foreign.
Frequently asked
Does it handle Japanese, Arabic and Hebrew?
Yes, including right-to-left rendering, and including text that mixes scripts.
What if the text is already in my language?
Then the plain hotkey proof-checks it instead of translating — aiCat picks based on what you are doing.
Which operating systems does aiCat support?
macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows 10/11, and Linux as AppImage, .deb or .rpm.
How much does aiCat cost?
Free to start, with 10 aiCatCoins a month and everything aiCat does included. Premium starts from $6 a month (40% off the $10 list price) and adds Think More, read-aloud, encrypted memory, 5000-character selections and 3000 coins a month. Team + Offline starts from $18 per member and adds local models, a memory you can edit by hand, and MCP access from your other tools. Coins can also be bought outright instead of subscribing, and they do not expire.