Installing TextLoupe

macOS 15 or later, Apple silicon or Intel. Two minutes, and one permission you grant by hand.

1. Download and drag it in

Press Download for macOS. You get a .dmg file. Open it and a small window appears: the TextLoupe icon, and a shortcut to your Applications folder. Drag the icon onto the folder. That is the install. Then eject the TextLoupe disk from the Finder sidebar.

2. Open it for the first time

Open your Applications folder and double-click TextLoupe. macOS may ask once whether you are sure you want to open something you downloaded. Click Open.

You will not see a warning that TextLoupe is damaged or cannot be checked for malicious software. Those are for unsigned apps. TextLoupe is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarised by Apple.

Then nothing happens, and that is correct. TextLoupe has no window and no Dock icon. It lives in the menu bar at the top of your screen, a small magnifying glass. Click it for Settings, Launch at Login and Quit.

3. Allow Accessibility

Select some text anywhere and press ⌥⌘T. The first time, macOS asks whether TextLoupe may control your computer.

That sentence is alarming, so here is what is behind it. macOS has one permission for everything an app might do with your screen and keyboard, named after the worst of it. TextLoupe uses it for two things: reading the text you selected when you press the hotkey, and pasting the result back over it. It does not watch you type, because the hotkey is registered with the system rather than read from the keyboard. The one nuance is the One-handed option below, and the privacy policy spells out exactly what that one does.

Open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security, then Accessibility. Find TextLoupe in the list and turn its switch on. TextLoupe's panel has an Open System Settings button that goes straight there. If macOS asks for your password or Touch ID, that is macOS guarding the setting, not TextLoupe.

Nothing needs restarting. Press the hotkey again and it works.

4. Using it

Select text in any app and press the hotkey. A panel appears holding your text, with three actions: Translate, Fix Grammar and Improve AI Prompt. Pick one. Replace pastes the result back over your selection, Copy puts it on the clipboard.

To change the hotkey, open Settings from the menu bar icon and press a new combination into the field beside Show popover. It needs Control or Option, because Command shortcuts belong to the app you are in.

If a three-key chord is awkward one-handed, use One-handed underneath. Pick a modifier and tap it twice quickly. Holding it does nothing, and neither does pressing it with a key.

When something does not work

• Nothing happens when you press the hotkey. Another app holds that combination, and macOS will not give it to two at once. Open Settings and record a different one.
• It asks you to select text first. A few apps do not hand their selection over, so TextLoupe copies it instead, and that copy is blocked wherever macOS has secure input on.
• Replace put the result on the clipboard. Secure input stops a paste, and so does the app you selected in having quit meanwhile. Nothing is lost: paste it with ⌘V.
• It says the selection is too large. One run takes up to 12,000 characters.
• Tapping twice does nothing. The one-handed gesture needs the same Accessibility permission, and Settings says so in red when it is missing.

TextLoupe is actively worked on, and [email protected] reaches the person who built it. If anything here does not match what you see, say so and it gets fixed.