zzan

A macOS menu-bar utility for translating text to English in one keystroke.

Press the shortcut, type in any language, hit Enter — the English translation lands on your clipboard.

Built on the native macOS Translation framework. No API key, no cost, no round-trip.

Usage

Key	Action
Global shortcut (default ⌃⌥⌘T)	Open the input panel
Enter	Translate → copy to clipboard → close
Shift+Enter	Insert a newline
Esc	Close without translating

After closing, focus returns to your previous app — just paste.

Install

Download the latest zzan-<version>.dmg from Releases, open it, and drag zzan.app to /Applications.

On first launch macOS may ask to download the on-device language model for your language. After that, translation works offline.

Build from source

Requires Xcode 16+ / macOS 15+.

git clone https://github.com/parkjangwon/zzan
cd zzan
./build.sh
open build/zzan.app

Release

Releases are published by GitHub Actions when a version tag is pushed:

git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

Settings

• Shortcut — rebind the global hotkey (conflict-checked)
• Source language — auto-detect (default) or pin to a specific language
• Launch at login — start zzan automatically on login
• History — recent 10 translations in the menu bar, click to re-copy