Frequently Asked Questions

Apple Translation uses the same translation built into macOS. It supports 19 languages, is very fast, and requires no setup beyond downloading the language pair.

Apple Intelligence understands context and nuance better, and supports more languages. You need Apple Intelligence turned on in System Settings.

Built-in AI model is powered by Google's TranslateGemma, a purpose-built translation model running locally via llama.cpp. 55 languages, download once, works forever, fully offline. No Apple features required.

Start with Apple Translation if your language is supported. It's the fastest option. If you need a language it doesn't cover, or want better handling of slang and nuance, try Apple Intelligence. If you don't have either of those available, the built-in AI model works on any Mac.

All three models are from Google's TranslateGemma family, a purpose-built translation model supporting 55 languages, running locally via llama.cpp in GGUF format (Q4_K_M quantization):

Small (4B) — ~2.6 GB download. Any Mac with 8 GB RAM.
Medium (12B) — ~7.4 GB download. Needs 16 GB RAM or more.
Large (27B) — ~16.6 GB download. Needs 24 GB RAM or more.

Download any of them with one click from the settings screen. If the in-app download doesn't work, you can download the model files manually from HuggingFace and import them:

TranslateGemma 4B (Small) — translategemma-4b-it.Q4_K_M.gguf
TranslateGemma 12B (Medium) — translategemma-12b-it.Q4_K_M.gguf
TranslateGemma 27B (Large) — translategemma-27b-it.Q4_K_M.gguf

Go to settings, enable AI translation, select "On-Device Model", and click "Import custom model" to load the downloaded file.

Yes. Plae supports importing any GGUF model file. Go to settings, enable AI translation, select "On-Device Model" as the backend, and click "Import custom model." The model needs to support the chat/instruct format for best results.

Yes. Plae ships with TranslateGemma, but any GGUF model that supports the chat/instruct format will work. Qwen 2.5 Instruct models are a popular alternative — they're smaller downloads and still produce good translations:

Qwen 2.5 0.5B Instruct — qwen2.5-0.5b-instruct-q4_k_m.gguf (~490 MB)
Qwen 2.5 1.5B Instruct — qwen2.5-1.5b-instruct-q4_k_m.gguf (~1.12 GB)
Qwen 2.5 3B Instruct — qwen2.5-3b-instruct-q4_k_m.gguf (~2.1 GB)

Download the GGUF file from HuggingFace, then go to settings, enable AI translation, select "On-Device Model", and click "Import custom model" to load it.

Models downloaded through Plae are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/Plae/Models/.

If you use other llama.cpp-based tools, you may also have compatible GGUF models in ~/Library/Caches/llama.cpp/. To use those in Plae, click "Import custom model" in settings and select the file.

Apple Translation supports 19 languages: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Dutch, English (US and UK), French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese. Apple Intelligence and the built-in AI model can handle additional languages beyond this list.

For Apple Translation, macOS will prompt you to download the language pair the first time you use it. It's a small download and only happens once. For the built-in AI model, you download the model once from the settings screen. After that, everything works offline.

Plae lives in your menu bar. Click the icon or press the keyboard shortcut (default: ⌘⇧T) to open it. You can customize the shortcut in settings.

No. All three engines run on your Mac. Once you've downloaded the language pair or AI model, everything works offline. Plae never connects to the internet.

Presentation mode shows your translation in large text across your screen. It's useful when you need to show a translation to someone sitting across from you, like in a meeting or at a restaurant. Press ⌘⇧L to open it.

Plae requires macOS Sequoia (15.0) or later. Apple Translation and the built-in AI model work on any supported Mac. Apple Intelligence translation requires macOS Tahoe or later.

Yes. Plae keeps a local history of your recent translations so you can go back to them. You can also mark translations as favorites. Everything is stored locally on your Mac.

No. Plae is a one-time purchase of $4.99 on the Mac App Store. Pay once, use it forever. No recurring fees.

Yes. Since it's purchased through the Mac App Store, you can download it on any Mac signed in with the same Apple ID.

Purchases are handled by Apple. Contact Apple Support or use reportaproblem.apple.com to request a refund.

No. All translation happens on your Mac. Your text never leaves your computer. Plae doesn't have a server, a database, or any way to see what you're translating.

No. Zero analytics, zero telemetry, zero tracking. There's no code in the app that phones home.

Email us at support@plae.app.