u/Thin-Lawfulness-7861

my friend has been doing this for years lol, keeps all his vocab in notes app with little definitions and comments. honestly thought it was kinda genius until he lost half of it when he accidentally deleted the list..

been looking for something that actually lets you organize words properly, like tag them, search them, add context. couldn't find anything so i just started building one (but its was a fail)

ngl it's been live for a few weeks and basically nobody uses it lol. i think the problem is it's hard to explain why you'd want this over just... a notes app. like the screenshot above is fine? it works. but then you lose it, or you can't search it, or you want to group words by topic and suddenly you're making 12 different notes and it gets messy

idk maybe the problem i'm solving isn't real enough for most people. or the landing page sucks. probably botht's called leafy,if anyone wants to check it out. still pretty early but it does the core stuff

Hi r/MacOSApps, I made Leafy because premade decks never worked for me. The words I actually need are the ones I run into while reading.

So that's what it does. You highlight a word in any app, browser, PDF, anywhere, and Leafy saves it with the sentence you found it in. Over time you get a vocab library built from your own reading, and it quizzes you on it with spaced repetition.

No deck downloads, no card making.

It's free to try: https://leafyapp.uk/

I'd love feedback on two things: does the capture flow feel natural, and what would make you keep using it past week one?

anyone else look up a word, forget about it, then see it again 5 weeks later in a different class and have to look it up again because there's no record you ever saw it before? happens to me all the time across different subjects.

apple's Look Up is fine for quick stuff but it doesn't work on video at all, and even when it does work there's nowhere to actually save the word, so I just end up copy pasting into Notes until it's an unreadable mess I never open again.

ended up building a small mac tool that OCRs whatever's on screen including video, saves it into folders, and exports to anki. been live 2 months, only 17 downloads, not sure if that means nobody else has this problem or if I just did something wrong

how do you guys actually deal with this, or does everyone just copy paste into notes and never look at it again lol

I’ve been learning languages on my Mac by reading a lot of articles, PDFs, and papers, and I kept running into the same limitation with existing tools, so I built my own.

What I wanted in one app:

1. Capture unknown words instantly while reading, without breaking flow. Click any word in PDFs, articles, or web pages and save it with its original sentence for context.
2. Build a real vocabulary dock instead of a flat word list. Everything stays tied to where it came from, so recognition actually improves when you see it again.
3. Keyboard-first workflow. No switching apps or disrupting reading.
4. No generic flashcards or forced review system. Vocabulary comes from real usage, not predefined decks.
5. Searchable vocabulary history. I often remember the sentence before the word, so full-text search across saved context matters.
6. Works across anything I read on Mac: PDFs, articles, academic papers, web pages.
7. The goal is simple: turn reading into continuous vocabulary accumulation instead of repeated dictionary lookups.

If you want to try it or give feedback, it’s here: https://leafy-web.binjto.workers.dev/#signup

I never really liked studying from generic word lists or flashcard decks.

It always felt like half the words didn’t matter to me, and the ones that did were just sitting in isolation, not connected to anything I’d actually run into.

So when I was learning languages on my Mac, I kept doing something slightly different without really thinking about it.

While reading articles, books, or random stuff in another language, I’d just save the words I actually struggled with, along with the sentence they appeared in.

Not textbook examples. Just real sentences from real things I was reading.

Over time, that turned into a personal vocabulary list made entirely out of my own reading, instead of someone else’s curated word sets.

So I turned that into a small Mac app.

Now when I read anything, I can scan unknown words and automatically save them with context. Later, if I want to actually review them, I can export everything as CSV or JSON.

It’s still pretty rough, but it fits the way I naturally learn a lot better than flashcards ever did.

If you’re learning a language and mostly reading on your computer, I’d love to hear what you think. Comment the language you’re learning if you want to try the beta.

Hey everyone, I'm the developer behind Leafy.

For a while now, learning French and German by reading has had the same annoying problem. I'd look up a word, understand it for a few seconds, and forget it completely. Worse, I'd run into the exact same word again in a different article weeks later and have zero memory of ever looking it up, so I'd just look it up again.

Eventually I got tired of that loop and decided to build a tool that actually fixes it.

Why I built this

After a while it became obvious: looking a word up isn't the same as learning it. But nothing actually bridged that gap. Dictionary apps just look things up and forget them. Flashcard apps come with someone else's decks that have nothing to do with what you're actually reading.

So the core idea behind Leafy is simple: capture the words you actually run into, with the real sentence they came from, and turn that into a vocab list that's entirely your own.

What it does right now:

1. Capture from anywhere Select a word like you normally would in any app, or box-select it with a hotkey if it's something you can't select, like a PDF image or a video subtitle, and it reads the text with OCR instead.
2. Automatic definitions Every word gets a definition, phonetic spelling, part of speech, and an example sentence generated automatically. For gendered languages (German, French, Spanish, Italian, Greek), it tags the gender too.
3. Real context, not textbook examples Leafy saves the actual sentence the word came from, and can explain how the word's meaning shifts in that specific sentence.
4. Never re-look up the same word If you scan a word you've already saved, it shows you the existing entry instead of treating it as brand new.
5. Folders and export Organize words into folders, then export the whole list, a folder, or hand-picked words as a CSV or JSON file whenever you want to actually sit down and study.
6. Multiple languages Currently supports French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and several others.

Early beta, completely free

Leafy is still early. It's free to use during the beta, no subscriptions, no price set.

How to join:

Comment below with what language you're learning, or what you'd use it for！

Last week I was reading something in French and got annoyed for probably the hundredth time.

The word I looked up had nothing to do with anything I actually read or say day to day. It came from some generic vocab list I downloaded once and never really mattered to me.

That's basically been my whole experience studying vocab. The words are picked by someone else, for some average learner, not for what I'm actually reading.

So I built a Mac app that flips that around.

You scan a word while you're reading anything, an article, a book, whatever's on your screen, and it gets saved along with the real sentence it came from.

Your vocab list ends up made entirely out of stuff you've actually read, instead of a stranger's list that happens to overlap with your life by chance.

When you're ready to study it, you export the whole thing as a CSV or JSON file.

Mac only, still rough around the edges.

Comment what language you're learning if you want in on the beta.

I never liked studying from word lists or flashcard decks.

The words never had anything to do with me. Just some generic list of "common words" that happened to include stuff I'd never actually say.

So I built a small Mac app that builds your vocab list out of stuff you actually read.

While you're going through a book, an article, anything on screen, you scan the words you don't know. They get saved along with the real sentence they came from.

After a while you end up with a vocab list made entirely out of things you've actually read.

When you're ready to learn it, you export the whole list as a CSV or JSON file.

Mac only, still rough around the edges.

Comment what you'd use it for and I'll get you into the beta.

I've been learning French and German, and reading something in another language is never just reading. It's constant stopping to look something up, half-remembering it, then forgetting it again.

So I built a Mac app around a simple idea: every word you look up while reading gets saved into a running list instead of disappearing the moment you close the dictionary.

The actual point isn't the lookup itself. It's that when you finish a chapter or an article, you export that whole list as a CSV or JSON file and sit down and actually memorize it properly, instead of vaguely remembering words you glanced at an hour ago.

Mac only, still rough. Comment what language you're learning if you are good at feedback

I’ve been learning languages through reading for years.

One thing kept bothering me:

I’d look up a word, understand it, continue reading, and then find myself looking up the exact same word again a few weeks later.

Most dictionary tools help you understand a word in the moment, but they don’t help much with long-term retention.

So I built Leafy.

Leafy lets you read PDFs, articles, books, and other content while automatically saving unfamiliar words as you encounter them.

When you click a word:

• AI explains the meaning in context
• The word is automatically saved
• Your vocabulary grows naturally as you read

Over time, those lookups become a personal vocabulary collection instead of disappearing after you close the dictionary.

The goal isn’t to memorize word lists.

The goal is to make every lookup count.

I’ve been using it while reading academic papers and foreign-language articles, and it’s already changed the way I learn vocabulary.

I’d love feedback from language learners, students, and anyone who learns primarily through reading.

looking for different native language speaker-tester

DMs are open if you’d like to try it.

I especially noticed this when reading academic PDFs.

I’d find an unfamiliar word, look it up, understand it, and then forget it a few weeks later.

So I built a tool that lets me scan any PDF, tap unfamiliar words, and automatically save them while I read. AI takes care of the definitions in the background,

so I can stay focused on reading instead of bouncing between the paper and a dictionary.

The idea is simple:

Every word you look up should make you a little better at the language.

Here’s a quick demo using a French academic paper.

Looking for a few beta testers if anyone’s interested.

Anyone else tired of re-learning the same words?

I realized that every dictionary helps me understand a word, but not necessarily remember it.

So I built a tool that automatically saves words I look up while reading and helps them accumulate over time.

Works with any language.

Looking for a few beta testers if anyone’s interested.

Comment "1" I'll dm you

For example, imagine you’re learning Spanish and reading a Spanish article. While reading, you might use the macOS three-finger lookup many times. Yes, you may learn a few new words, but if you want to review all the words you looked up today, you have to write them down or copy and paste them somewhere else. Even if you can press Cmd+C and Cmd+V quickly, it still interrupts your reading flow.

To solve this problem, I developed an app that not only lets you instantly look up words directly in the text, but also save them to your personal list with just one click in the popup.

At the same time, the popup shows the meaning of the word in context, so the word feels alive instead of isolated. These contextual meanings are generated by AI.

For example, imagine you’re learning Spanish and reading a Spanish article. While reading, you might use the macOS three-finger lookup many times. Yes, you may learn a few new words, but if you want to review all the words you looked up today, you have to write them down or copy and paste them somewhere else. Even if you can press Cmd+C and Cmd+V quickly, it still interrupts your reading flow.

To solve this problem, I developed an app that not only lets you instantly look up words directly in the text, but also save them to your personal list with just one click in the popup.

At the same time, the popup shows the meaning of the word in context, so the word feels alive instead of isolated. These contextual meanings are generated by AI.

its called leafy 

Now I just press Option+A and click a word. It instantly shows the meaning and lets me save it without leaving what I’m doing.

This small change improved my productivity way more than I expected.

After about 2 weeks, my vocabulary went from ~5200 to ~6700 words.

Anyone else struggling with this?