Translate to Arabic on Your Mac with One Shortcut

Arabic is a right-to-left language with a script, grammar, and register system that most translation tools handle poorly. You paste English text into Google Translate, get a result back, and then wonder: is this Modern Standard Arabic or a dialect? Is the formality level appropriate for a business email? Does my app even render the RTL text direction correctly when I paste it back?

If you need to translate to Arabic regularly on your Mac — for client emails, proposals, or internal documents — these friction points add up fast.

Translate to Arabic Without Leaving Your Document

WunderType is a macOS menu bar app that runs AI text actions system-wide. You create a Custom Prompt with specific instructions — in this case, translating selected English text into formal Modern Standard Arabic — and assign it a keyboard shortcut. Then, in any app on your Mac, you highlight text, press the shortcut, and get the Arabic translation placed right back where the original was.

The translation respects the context you define in your prompt instruction. That means you can specify Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) rather than a regional dialect, request a formal business register, and ensure the output is polished enough to send without a second pass.

See It in Action

Here's an English business message that needs to go to a client in Cairo:

Before

I need to send this email to my client in Cairo. The original text is: 'We are excited to propose a new solution for your business. It's going to be a game changer.'

Select the text, press ⌥⇧⌘T, and WunderType returns:

After

يسرنا أن نقدم لكم حلاً جديدًا لعملكم. نعتقد أن هذا الحل سيكون ثورة في مجال عملكم وسوف نالت إعجابكم. يرجى إعلامنا إذا كانت لديكم أي استفسارات.

Notice what happened: the casual English phrasing ("game changer") became a formal Arabic equivalent. The surrounding instruction ("I need to send this email…") was understood as context, not content to translate. The output is clean MSA suitable for professional correspondence.

Why Generic Translators Fall Short for Arabic

Arabic presents challenges that go beyond vocabulary substitution. The right-to-left text direction can cause formatting issues when pasting between apps. Most free translation tools default to a casual register that reads awkwardly in business contexts. And the gap between Modern Standard Arabic and spoken dialects — Egyptian, Gulf, Levantine — means a "correct" translation might still be wrong for your audience.

With a WunderType Custom Prompt, you control all of this in the instruction. Want MSA with formal business tone? Specify it once. Need Egyptian Arabic for a different audience? Create a second prompt. Each one gets its own keyboard shortcut, ready whenever you need it.

Set Up Your Arabic Translator

1. Click the WunderType icon in your menu bar and open Custom Prompts
2. Create a new prompt named "Arabic Text Translator" with an instruction like: Translate the selected English text into formal Modern Standard Arabic suitable for professional business communication. Output only the Arabic translation.
3. Assign ⌥⇧⌘T or any shortcut you prefer — it now works in every app on your Mac

Works Everywhere on macOS

Mail, Pages, Microsoft Word, Slack, your browser — WunderType operates at the system level, so your Arabic translation shortcut is available in any app that handles text. No extensions to install per app, no copy-pasting into a separate translation window. Highlight, press your shortcut, and the Arabic text appears in place.

For teams that communicate across English and Arabic regularly, this turns a multi-step workflow into a single keystroke.

Download WunderType from the Mac App Store and start translating to Arabic directly from your Mac.