WhaleRead is a local-first macOS reader that translates TXT, Markdown, and EPUB with on-device 7B or self-hosted 30B private models, preserves bilingual reading, and adds human-confirmed review plus Ask AI—while keeping your library under your control.
Hi Product Hunt — I built WhaleRead because translating a book often destroys the experience of reading it.
WhaleRead keeps the whole journey in one calm macOS workspace: import a local TXT, Markdown, or EPUB, translate it, read source and translation side by side, flag an awkward passage, review a proposed correction, and ask AI about the page without moving the whole library into a consumer cloud.
For this launch I tested the same five original passages with two private model paths. The on-device 7B keeps text on the Mac and works well for everyday reading. A self-hosted 30B private model handled idioms and narrative voice more consistently, with quality that feels close to cloud-scale models while staying on infrastructure I control.
I also kept the failures visible. In one English-to-Chinese passage, the 7B translated “kept her cards close” as literally holding cards to her chest. WhaleRead’s review flow surfaced the source, explanation, suggested revision, and a final human-confirmed fix. In a French test, even the 30B produced a title/body gender inconsistency. That is why review is part of the product, not a cleanup step hidden from the reader.
WhaleRead 1.18 has English and Chinese interfaces, native language names, bilingual reading, EPUB preservation, resumable translation, human-confirmed review, and page-based Ask AI. GPT-6 Astra helped audit the architecture, harden language boundaries, and turn the release into a verifiable demo.
This is a working macOS private beta. I would especially love feedback from multilingual readers, translators, and people who care about owning their reading data: which language pair or difficult expression should I test next?
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About WhaleRead on Product Hunt
“Locally translate TXT, Markdown, and EPUB”
WhaleRead launched on Product Hunt on September 18th, 2026 and earned 80 upvotes and 1 comments, placing #20 on the daily leaderboard. WhaleRead is a local-first macOS reader that translates TXT, Markdown, and EPUB with on-device 7B or self-hosted 30B private models, preserves bilingual reading, and adds human-confirmed review plus Ask AI—while keeping your library under your control.
WhaleRead was featured in Languages (14.5k followers), Artificial Intelligence (478.9k followers), Books (122.7k followers) and OpenAI Day (40 followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 141.6k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted WhaleRead?
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