Turn on Explain and run it
Explain uses answer rules. Like writing rules, each has its own instructions, model, and shortcut, but its result opens in a panel instead of replacing your text. Answer rules have no Try, because an answer needs a selection. Turning Explain off removes its shortcuts, bubble, and panel; the rules and settings stay.
- Turn on Explain in Features. Explain appears in the sidebar with one answer rule, also named Explain, that has no shortcut yet.
- Open Explain, check the rule’s model, and record a shortcut. Choose New answer rule for other questions, such as a definition or a translation. Each answer rule uses its own model.
- Select text in another app and press the shortcut. You can also run an answer rule from the command bar or from the selection bubble.
Read, follow up, and save the answer
The answer panel opens next to the selection. Explain’s own instructions ask for one to three plain sentences; edit the rule’s instructions for longer answers. With History on, answers also appear in History under their own Answers filter.
- One line at the top shows the rule and its model, with Keep open (the pin) and Close. Escape closes the panel too.
- Ask a follow-up continues in the same panel, with the earlier questions and answers.
- The icons beside the follow-up field are Stop (⌘.) while an answer is still running, Copy (⌘↩), and Save to note (⌘S) while Save answers to notes is on.
- If an answer fails or you stop it, Retry runs it again; after a failure, Edit rule opens the rule’s editor.
Surrounding text and notes
Include surrounding text, on by default, sends the sentence or paragraph around the selection, up to 1,000 characters, so the answer fits the context. Turn it off to send the selection only.
Save answers to notes adds Save to note to the panel and to answers in History. Choose a Folder, such as an Obsidian vault, then choose One note per answer or Add to one note under Save as. Add to one note writes to the File you name inside the folder, by default Daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md, where YYYY, MM, and DD become today’s date. Open the note after saving opens it in Obsidian when the folder is inside a vault, otherwise in your Markdown app.
Show a bubble when you select text
With Show a bubble when you select text on, a small bubble appears after you select text in another app. It offers Explain and your other answer rules, and in text fields also your Writing rules. Its other settings are under Options. Also after a double-click and Also after selecting with the keyboard, both on, show it after a double-click or a selection with Shift and the arrow keys. Longer selections than Longest selection, 4,000 characters by default, show no bubble.
Chrome, Arc, Helium, Slack, Obsidian and other Chromium and Electron apps keep their text hidden from Accessibility. With Chrome and Electron apps on, the default, the bubble still appears there after you select with the mouse, at the pointer, and offers your answer rules; the text is copied only when you pick one, the way Explain’s shortcut copies it, with the clipboard restored. Frog does not switch these apps to the mode a screen reader uses, so they stay as fast as without Frog. VS Code and the editors built on it, such as Cursor and Windsurf, show no bubble. Explain’s shortcut works in every app either way.
Show in selection bubble, a switch in each rule’s editor, decides whether the bubble offers that rule; Writing rules appear only in text fields. A rule left out says Not in the bubble in its row. Explain comes first; past four rules, the rest open from the arrow at the end of the bubble, grouped into Answer and Replace selection.
Never show in lists apps where the bubble never appears, and Choose an App… adds one. 1Password, Bitwarden, Keychain Access, and Passwords are on it from the start. The bubble never shows in password fields, in games, or while secure input is on. Frog reads the selection through Accessibility and never copies it.
What Explain sends and saves
When you run an answer rule, Frog sends its model the selected text, the rule’s instructions, the surrounding text when that setting is on, the app’s name, the reply language (your Mac’s first preferred language), and earlier questions and answers in the same panel. The page or document address is never sent. A local model keeps all of this on your Mac; a cloud model receives it.
While the panel is open, Frog watches keys pressed in other apps for the Escape key only and reads no characters. Notes are written only when you press Save to note. They hold the selection, the answer and its follow-ups, the app’s name, and the model; a note per answer also holds the page or document address. The surrounding text is not written to notes.