macOS Look Up for Anki

Italiano · 日本語

Select a word on a card, right-click and choose Look Up "…" in Dictionary. The macOS Look Up panel opens over the word, as in Safari or in AnkiMobile on iPhone.

macOS only. On Windows and Linux the add-on loads and does nothing.

Right-click on a selected word	Look Up panel over the word

What it does

• Adds Look Up "…" in Dictionary at the top of the right-click menu when text is selected. It works in the reviewer, the previewer, the card layout screen and the editor (Add, Edit, Browse).
• Opens the macOS Look Up panel over the selected word, with the dictionaries enabled in the Dictionary app. Open in Dictionary in the panel shows the full entry. If the panel cannot be shown, the Dictionary app opens on the word instead.
• Shortcut during review: select a word and press L.
• Shows the right-click menus of cards and of the editor as native macOS menus, with the same items as Anki's own menus.
• The menu item and messages follow Anki's language: English, Italian or Japanese (English for any other language).

Install

• From AnkiWeb: Tools → Add-ons → Get Add-ons…, enter the code 859636264, restart Anki. Add-on page: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/859636264
• From a file: download the .ankiaddon file from Releases, double-click it or use Tools → Add-ons → Install from file…, then restart Anki.

Use

1. Select a word on a card: double-click it or drag over it.
2. Right-click and choose Look Up "…" in Dictionary. During review you can press L instead.
3. To choose which dictionaries appear in the panel, open the Dictionary app → Settings. For Japanese, enable for example スーパー大辞林 and the Japanese–English dictionary.

Options

Tools → Add-ons → select the add-on → Config. Changes apply from the next right-click; the shortcut changes after restarting Anki.

Limitations

• ⌃⌘D, the macOS Look Up shortcut, cannot be used: macOS keeps it for itself and never passes it to Anki. That is why the shortcut is L.
• While a native menu is open, Anki's timers are paused, so the card behind the menu does not update until the menu closes.
• Menus that contain controls such as sliders, added by other add-ons, are shown as Anki's own menu.
• In editor fields the panel can open at the mouse pointer instead of exactly over the word.
• If the Dictionary app opens instead of the panel, check the Dictionary app's settings: on some macOS versions they choose whether a lookup opens the panel or the app.
• Tested only with Anki 25.09.4 (Qt 6.9) on macOS 27, Apple Silicon. Intel Macs and other Anki versions have not been tested.

Privacy and safety

• The add-on makes no network requests, does not read or change your collection and writes no files.
• The selected text, up to 100 characters, goes to the macOS Look Up panel or to the Dictionary app, and only when you choose the menu item or press the shortcut. The Look Up panel itself can show online sources such as Wikipedia, depending on your macOS settings; that is macOS, not the add-on.
• It calls Apple's AppKit through Python's ctypes, with no extra libraries:
  • showDefinitionForAttributedString:atPoint: for the panel;
  • NSMenu for the menus;
  • NSWorkspace to open the Dictionary app, with the open command as fallback.
• After a native menu closes it calls Qt's internal resetMouseButtons, as Qt itself does after its own native menus, so the next clicks reach Anki's toolbars.
• The source is the Python files in this folder: __init__.py, macos_lookup.py, native_menu.py, objc_bridge.py.

Problems and suggestions

Open an issue: https://github.com/Amost-/anki-macos-look-up/issues

Remove

Tools → Add-ons → select the add-on → Delete, then restart Anki.

Credits

Earlier add-ons, OSX Dictionary Lookup and Mac OSX Dictionary Lookup, open the Dictionary app. This add-on adds the in-place Look Up panel and native menus.

License

AGPL-3.0-or-later, the same license as Anki. See LICENSE.