Babel

A lightweight Discord translator for macOS and Windows. Double-click any message to translate it in place, type in a floating box to translate-then-send, or turn on auto-translate to render new messages automatically. Bring your own AI provider — OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Kimi, Zhipu, OpenRouter, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

Named after the Tower of Babel — the wall of language this plugin is meant to tear down.

中文使用指南

It installs a BetterDiscord-style desktop-core hook: it backs up Discord's original loader, then patches it to load the Babel runtime into Discord's renderer. No Discord token is used and Discord's private APIs are never called.

# macOS
~/Library/Application Support/discord/app-*/modules/discord_desktop_core-*/discord_desktop_core/index.js
# Windows
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Discord\app-*\modules\discord_desktop_core-*\discord_desktop_core\index.js

Features

• Read translation — double-click a message to translate it in place; double-click again to hide it. Replies translate both the quoted preview and the body.
• Send translation — a draggable, resizable floating input box: type, press Enter, and Babel translates then sends. Its opacity is adjustable, and auto-send can be disabled to leave the translation in Discord's native composer for review.
• Auto-translate — optionally translate new incoming messages automatically. It only touches messages that arrive after you enable it (never the backlog), and skips messages already in your target language.
• Cloud or local models — use your own API key with a supported provider, enter any OpenAI-compatible model ID, or connect directly to Ollama / LM Studio without a key.
• Native styling — the settings UI reuses Discord's own components and follows the active theme. Style translations with background on/off, marker / wavy / bold / faded, custom colors, and fonts. Translation styles include a custom prompt option.
• Proxy-aware — provider requests go through Electron's network stack, so they honor your system / Discord proxy (a common cause of "fetch failed" on other plugins).

Install

Grab the latest installer from the Releases page.

Windows

Download Babel-Installer.exe — a single self-contained app (Go + giu GUI, plugin embedded; no Node.js required). Double-click it, then click Install.

macOS

Download Babel Manager.dmg, open it, and run Babel Manager (drag it to Applications first if you like). Click Install. It's a native arm64 Cocoa app that installs Babel directly, with no Node.js, Rosetta, or administrator rights required.

After installing (both platforms)

Fully quit Discord — system tray → Quit Discord, not just closing the window — and reopen it. Babel then appears in Discord Settings → Babel.

Usage

1. Open Discord Settings → Babel.
2. Under Model, choose your AI provider and model and paste your API key.
3. Under Translation, set your read/send target languages, tone, enable the send box and/or auto-translate.
4. Double-click a message to translate it; use the floating box to translate-and-send.

Staying updated

• In-app update check — click Check for updates in the settings footer to compare the installed version with the latest GitHub release.
• To update, download the latest installer and run it again — it overwrites the existing install in place.
• Discord updates remove the plugin. When Discord auto-updates it replaces the versioned core module folder, dropping the hook. Just run the installer again afterward.

Privacy & security

• Your messages and the text you translate are sent to the AI provider you choose (e.g. OpenAI / Anthropic / Google). Use a provider you trust; review its data policy.
• API keys are encrypted at rest via the OS keystore (Electron safeStorage: Keychain on macOS, DPAPI on Windows), stored locally in Discord's userData folder. They are never written in plaintext and never leave your machine except as the Authorization header to your chosen provider.
• Uninstalling wipes everything — settings, API keys, and cache are deleted on uninstall.

Development

npm test              # unit tests (node --test)
npm run build         # builds dist/Babel Manager.dmg (macOS) — needs Xcode CLT
npm run install:mod   # dev install from source (needs Node; macOS/Windows/Linux)
npm run uninstall:mod # dev uninstall + config cleanup
npm run verify        # test + build + dist signature check

The Windows .exe is built on a Windows CI runner (installer/, Go + giu); see .github/workflows/build.yml. To build it yourself on Windows:

node scripts/prepare-installer-payload.js   # populate installer/payload/
cd installer && go mod tidy && go build -ldflags "-H windowsgui" -o Babel-Installer.exe .

License

MIT © Maige — x.com/unflwMaige