Frequently asked questions

A local-first Windows desktop app for CJK learners. You capture text from your screen, read it with on-device OCR, look up words, save vocabulary, and review with spaced repetition. Mandarin Chinese is available today; Japanese and Korean are in development.

Yes. The full core loop — capture, OCR, lookup, saving, and review — is free, with a cap of 150 saved words. Words you've already saved are never locked. Glyphly Pro removes the cap and adds clipboard watch and the collection quiz; file import is in development.

You can learn Mandarin Chinese today. Japanese and Korean are planned, without a committed date. Explanations and translations can target English, French, German, Spanish, or Portuguese.

No. OCR, word segmentation, and dictionary lookup all run on your device. Screenshots and recognised text are not uploaded for those features. The only feature that sends text off your machine is optional sentence translation — and only when you enable it, and only the sentence you asked about. Full details in the Privacy Policy.

Yes. On first launch Glyphly downloads its language engine once (about 300 MB). After that, capture, lookup, and review work with no internet connection. Updates, license activation, and DeepL translation still need a connection.

Glyphly's installer is not yet code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen may warn about it. Choose More info → Run anyway. Code signing is in progress. Only download Glyphly from the official Releases page.

Windows 10 or Windows 11 (64-bit), at least 1 GB free disk space, and an internet connection for first-time setup, updates, and license activation. The language engine is a one-time download of about 300 MB.

Unlimited saved words, clipboard watch (look up text as you copy it), and the collection quiz. File import is in development and will be included with Pro when it ships. Plans are Founder Lifetime (one-time), Yearly, and Monthly, in Canadian dollars — see pricing.

After purchase you receive a license key by email. Open Glyphly, go to Settings → License, paste your key, and press Activate. One key works on up to 3 devices, and Pro stays unlocked for 14 days offline.

Sentence translation uses DeepL and is off by default. It runs on your own DeepL API key, so it costs nothing extra from us.

1. Get a free API key from DeepL's API page.
2. In Glyphly, open Settings → Translation.
3. Paste your key and save.

Without a key, no text is ever sent to DeepL and the sentence box is a plain manual-entry field.

Open an entry on the issue tracker, or email support@getglyphly.com if you would rather not use GitHub. Please include your Glyphly version (Settings → Application) and your Windows version so it's quicker to look into.

Purchases are handled by Lemon Squeezy, our merchant of record. If Glyphly does not work as described, you can request a refund within 14 days using the customer portal link in your receipt email. See the Refund Policy for what's covered.