Desktop writing utility

Rewrite it where you wrote it.

Highlight text in any app and press Ctrl+Alt+R. A wheel opens at your pointer. Sweep to an action, let go, and the selection is replaced where it sits.

Download Lightphrase See the gesture

Free. Windows, macOS, and Linux. MIT licensed.

hey — so i looked at the numbers again and honestly i think we should just push the launch back a couple weeks, it feels really rushed rn and i don’t wanna ship something half baked

Ctrl Alt R Press and hold anywhere in the message, then sweep.
The gesture

Four beats. About a second.

Everything happens where your hands already are. Lightphrase waits in the tray with the shortcut armed, so there is no window to find and no app to switch to.

  1. it feels really rushed rn and i don’t wanna ship something

    Your mouse

    Select

    Highlight text in any editable field — a browser textarea, a mail compose window, an editor. Read-only page text cannot be replaced.

  2. Ctrl Alt R
    Ctrl+Alt+R

    Summon

    Lightphrase copies the selection and opens the wheel centred on your pointer. That wheel is the signal the shortcut registered. A loading ring sits on the pointer after you pick an action, or immediately if you skip the wheel with Shift.

  3. Hold and sweep

    Sweep

    Keep the keys held, push the pointer toward a slice, and release. Sweeping past the outer rim keeps that slice latched, so the gesture never asks for precision.

  4. The current timeline feels rushed, and I would rather not ship early.

    Automatic

    Replace

    The result is pasted straight over your selection, and your clipboard is put back exactly the way you found it.

Already let go?
The wheel stays open. Click a slice, press 1–4, or use the arrow keys and Enter.
Changed your mind?
Escape, a click outside the ring, or switching to another app cancels silently and changes nothing.
Walked away?
A wheel left open for 15 seconds closes itself.
Skip the wheel
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R retones immediately with your active tone. Unavailable if your shortcut already uses Shift.
The wheel

Four actions. Clockwise from twelve.

The wheel is the menu of things Lightphrase can do to a selection. The number keys follow the same order.

Retone Translate Summarize Fix Grammar Lightphrase Tone: Professional Release over a slice
  • 12 o’clock Retone Rewrite in your active tone
  • 3 o’clock Translate Translate the selection
  • 6 o’clock Summarize Condense to the essential meaning
  • 9 o’clock Fix Grammar Correct grammar and spelling

Reorder the slices, swap one out, or cut the wheel down to a single action in Settings. Whatever order you choose is the order the number keys follow.

Retone

Five tones built in. Fifty more of your own.

Retone rewrites the selection in whichever tone is active. These are the exact instructions Lightphrase sends — every one of them, in full.

Professional

Default

Rewrite in a polished, business-appropriate register.

Casual

Rewrite in a relaxed, conversational register.

Concise

Trim to the essential meaning. No filler.

Persuasive

Rewrite to convince the reader and drive action.

Academic

Rewrite in a formal, scholarly register.

Speed

Three profiles. Very Fast by default.

Each profile prefers one provider but never pins to it, so when the fastest route is busy the same model is served from somewhere else instead of failing.

Normal

The cheapest route. Fine for short, everyday rewrites.

meta/llama-3.1-8b
Prefers Novita, falls back to DeepInfra

Fast

The largest model of the three, for longer or more delicate passages.

openai/gpt-oss-120b
Prefers Baseten, then Cerebras, Groq, Fireworks

Very Fast

Default

Groq first, so the replacement usually lands before you have moved your hand.

openai/gpt-oss-20b
Prefers Groq, then Together, DeepInfra, Novita

TTFT 340ms · headers 120ms · total 1.20s · 412 chars · 340 chars/s · 88→112 tok

Privacy

What never leaves your computer.

A tool that watches your selection has to be careful with it. Here is exactly what Lightphrase does and does not touch.

Your clipboard, returned

Lightphrase snapshots the clipboard before it copies your selection and restores it after it pastes. You get back exactly what you had.

Nothing overwritten by accident

Move the caret or change the selection while it is generating and the replacement is cancelled, rather than landing in whatever field you moved to.

Settings stay local

Tones, shortcuts, and history stay on this computer as plain files in your app data directory. Neither is uploaded or synced.

Text goes out only on request

Your selection is sent when you pick an action, and at no other time. Session tokens never leave the main process and are encrypted with your operating system keychain.

Download

Get Lightphrase.

Install it, sign in once to arm the shortcut, and close the window. It waits in the tray from there.

Windows

Works out of the box. The installer lets you choose where it goes.

lightphrase-0.1.0-setup.exe · NSIS installer

macOS

Needs Accessibility permission to copy and paste for you — System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. Lightphrase asks on first use.

lightphrase-0.1.0.dmg · Apple silicon and Intel

Linux

Automatic replace works on X11. Wayland can register the shortcut but cannot inject copy and paste, and Lightphrase says so rather than failing quietly.

lightphrase-0.1.0.AppImage · .deb also available

1,000 a day

Rewrites per account, resetting at 00:00 UTC.

Free, no card

An account arms the shortcut. There is nothing to buy.

MIT licensed

Read it, fork it, build it yourself.

Version 0.1.0, pre-release. Builds are not yet code-signed or notarized, so Windows SmartScreen and macOS Gatekeeper will warn on first launch. There is no automatic updater yet — new versions are installed by hand.