FAQ
Does it cost money?
Section titled “Does it cost money?”ZenCopy itself is free, open-source software (Apache-2.0). There is no account and no subscription.
What the AI service charges is between you and that service. With Google’s free tier, it is completely free — unless you register a payment method, you cannot be charged. And with an AI that runs entirely on your own computer (Ollama, for example), there is no external service to pay in the first place.
Where does my copied content go?
Section titled “Where does my copied content go?”Only when you copy twice does the content go directly to the AI service you configured — and nowhere else. There is no ZenCopy server, no relay, and no usage tracking (telemetry). Your API key never leaves your machine either.
Does an ordinary copy trigger anything?
Section titled “Does an ordinary copy trigger anything?”No. A single Ctrl/⌘ + C starts nothing, reads nothing, and sends nothing. Only two copies in quick succession are the signal.
How much can I trust the AI’s answers?
Section titled “How much can I trust the AI’s answers?”AI can be fluently wrong. It is genuinely useful for grasping the gist of a text, but for numbers, names, and anything consequential — contracts, medical text — check against the original before acting on it.
How is this different from other “AI on selection” tools?
Section titled “How is this different from other “AI on selection” tools?”Most tools in this space are macOS-only, work on selected text only, and are tied to one vendor’s AI or a subscription. ZenCopy runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, handles text, images, and files, and lets you choose the AI service (OpenAI / Google / Anthropic / a corporate gateway / local Ollama). And it does not stop at one round trip: the field under the answer keeps the conversation going, right there. Which prompt runs is also yours to decide. No account, no subscription, no telemetry — open-source software.
How is this different from chat sites like ChatGPT?
Section titled “How is this different from chat sites like ChatGPT?”A chat site is a place you go to talk. ZenCopy summons the conversation on top of whatever you are looking at. Select, copy twice — the passage you were reading, a screenshot of an error, a PDF you received becomes the starting point of a conversation, with no pasting. The first answer (a summary, a translation, …) starts automatically; from there it is an ordinary chat. You choose the model, and no history is kept on any server — each conversation lives only until your next copy.
Another app also reacts to Ctrl/⌘ + C + C (e.g. DeepL)
Section titled “Another app also reacts to Ctrl/⌘ + C + C (e.g. DeepL)”No app can own the “copy twice” signal at the OS level. If another app is listening for the same signal (DeepL is the well-known one), both react and two popups appear. ZenCopy neither intercepts nor blocks any key events, so nothing breaks — that is the whole symptom. Disable the shortcut in whichever app you use less (for DeepL: Settings → General → shortcut for translating).
The popup never appears (macOS)
Section titled “The popup never appears (macOS)”Almost certainly permissions. Allow Input Monitoring for ZenCopy under System Settings → Privacy & Security, then quit and restart the app. (That permission is how the app notices that copy was pressed twice.)
No result comes back / it says it timed out
Section titled “No result comes back / it says it timed out”If the response goes silent for 90 seconds, ZenCopy fails the run instead of waiting forever. Check your internet connection and the AI service settings (API key and so on), then press Retry. A local AI can take a while to load the first time, which is why the timeout is deliberately generous.
Where are the logs?
Section titled “Where are the logs?”%LOCALAPPDATA%\app.zencopy\logs~/Library/Logs/app.zencopy/~/.local/share/app.zencopy/logsLogs never contain your copied content or API keys.
What does uninstalling remove?
Section titled “What does uninstalling remove?”The uninstaller asks with a Delete application data checkbox — checking it removes everything: settings, API keys, custom prompts, logs, and the webview profile. (One harmless leftover whether or not you check it: if launch-at-login was enabled, a registry entry pointing at nothing may remain — Windows ignores entries whose target does not exist.)
Dropping the app in the Trash does not delete its data — that is the macOS convention, and
ZenCopy follows it. For a full wipe, first run Settings → Reset all settings (removes all
settings including API keys; logs stay for diagnostics, so delete ~/Library/Logs/app.zencopy
by hand for a truly clean slate), then trash the app.
Package managers remove the app only; user data stays — also the Linux convention. For a full
wipe, first run Settings → Reset all settings, then remove the package or AppImage. The
GNOME trigger extension can be removed with gnome-extensions uninstall copycopy@sincekmori.github.io.
Which Linux environments are supported?
Section titled “Which Linux environments are supported?”GNOME on Wayland, and X11.
On GNOME Wayland, background processes cannot observe keys or the clipboard by design, so ZenCopy (via the copycopy crate) ships a small GNOME Shell extension that detects the double copy from inside the compositor.
It is auto-installed into your user profile on first launch (no sudo) and becomes active after logging out and back in once.
On X11, an ordinary passive key listener works, as on Windows.
Other Wayland compositors (KDE Plasma, wlroots-based) offer no unprivileged way to observe the trigger and are not supported yet — the app runs, but the trigger stays inert.
The tray icon does not show up (Linux)
Section titled “The tray icon does not show up (Linux)”ZenCopy’s tray icon uses the AppIndicator protocol. Ubuntu’s GNOME supports it out of the box, but vanilla GNOME (Fedora, for example) shows nothing until the AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support Shell extension is installed. Either way the app itself works — the tray menu is just one way in.