Words for macOS, a menu bar app for learning English while you code

You ask Claude Code or Codex for help, and the reply comes in English as usual. With Words running, English words in that reply appear with their translations into your language, for example “deadline” with the German “Frist” or “window” with the Russian “окно”. Later the same words come back as cards, and each card offers Forgot, Know and Easy.

Words by LaboratorU is a free menu bar app for macOS. Since 11 November it has its own page in the Laboratory. We have not measured the app for this article. Everything here comes from that page, and every statement on the page comes from the app’s public README, privacy notice and learning policy.

What it does

Words works with the Claude Code and Codex coding assistants. While you work, English words appear in your normal chat replies together with their translations. You can revisit them in rotating cards, hear the English pronunciation, search the word list and track your progress. The app has a light and a dark appearance.

It comes with 410 English words. A fresh setup starts with 10 words in Learning and 400 in New. Translations exist for Russian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, German, Indonesian and French. They are downloaded separately and need no GitHub sign-in. The adapters for Claude Code and Codex are optional and local, and you can connect either one or both.

Requirements and install

The app is a public preview. It runs on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 15 or later; Intel Macs are not supported. The app and its installer are signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple. The download is a DMG from the project’s GitHub releases page. The source code is not published.

Installing takes three steps. Open the DMG and drag Words to Applications. Choose your translation language and, if you want, connect Claude Code, Codex or both. Then start a new chat session. Codex asks you to approve the two Words hooks first, and until you do, learning words do not appear in Codex replies.

Where your data goes

Learning progress is stored on your Mac. Words has no analytics or advertising SDK, and it does not send your chats to a LaboratorU server. The chat itself still goes to the provider behind Claude Code or Codex, which processes it under its own terms. The app keeps a word log with times, offered words and matched words, without the message text. Dictionary downloads and app updates come from GitHub.

Why it has a page in the Laboratory

Words is a desktop app, so the Laboratory page does not run it. The page explains what the app does, lists the requirements and the privacy rules, and links to the download. It is translated into all 23 Laboratory languages.

Our first plan for the page was the app’s animated GIF, which weighs 2.7 MB. The page shows four sample cards instead, drawn in HTML and CSS and marked as an illustration, not a screenshot. The Laboratory home shows two of them in a compact card. The PDF and network sites do not link to Words.

The page also has the download button, the 30-second demo and the full install steps. Words is made by LaboratorU and is not affiliated with Apple, OpenAI or Anthropic.

The Words for macOS page is in the Laboratory on laboratoru.com.