Selection assistant

Selection Assistant lets you, in any app, select text and then use the floating toolbar to call AI for translation, explanation, optimization, summarization, and more, without needing to paste the content back into Cherry Studio.

and Quick Assistant Difference:

• Quick Assistant: Use a global shortcut to bring up a actively input window, where you type your question
• Text selection assistant: after selecting text, for the selected content a toolbar pops up to execute preset actions with one click

Platform support

• ✅ macOS: Fully supported, but on first enable you must grant Accessibility permission
• ✅ Windows: Fully supported, no special permissions required
• ⚠️ Linux: Fully supported only in X11 mode; in Wayland mode, the toolbar may not be able to position itself following the selected text. You also need to add the current user to the input group (sudo usermod -aG input $USER) to obtain keyboard listening permission

Enable Selection Assistant

Open [Settings] → [Selection Assistant]:

Selection Assistant settings panel

1. After opening Enabled Switch
2. macOS When users enable it for the first time, a pop-up requests Accessibility permission:

   

   Accessibility permission prompt on first enable

   Click Go to Settings → In the pop-up [System Settings] → [Privacy & Security] → [Accessibility], find Cherry Studio and turn on the switch → go back to Cherry Studio and enable it again.
3. (Optional) In [Toolbar] → [Word Selection Method], choose the trigger mode (options vary by platform):

   • Selection: After selecting text, the toolbar pops up immediately (default)
   • Ctrl key(Windows only): after selecting text, then press and hold the Ctrl key before it pops up (to avoid accidental triggers)
   • Shortcuts: after selecting text, press a shortcut key to pop it up; change the shortcut in [Settings] → [Shortcuts]

Settings panel after enabling: word selection method / compact mode / follow toolbar...

Built-in actions

Selection Assistant provides 7 built-in actions,5 enabled by default: Translate / Explain / Summarize / Search / Copy. The Cherry icon on the left of the toolbar is not an action button— it is only the drag handle for the toolbar; hold it to move the entire toolbar.

Action	Enabled by default	Purpose
Translation	✅	Smart translation: prioritize translating into the target language; if it is already in the target language, translate into the fallback language
Explain	✅	Have AI explain this content
Summarize	✅	Have AI summarize the selected content in one paragraph
Search	✅	Use the selected text to query a search engine (Google by default; can be changed via ⋯ on the right of each item)
Copy	✅	Copy selected text
Optimize	To be enabled	Have AI rewrite it to be smoother / more professional; needs to be dragged into the enabled area in settings
Quote	To be enabled	Send the selected text to the current conversation as a quote; needs to be dragged into the enabled area in settings

In the settings panel's [Functions] section: enabled items are above; drag items from the temporary area below to the top to enable them

Custom actions

In [Settings] → [Selection Assistant] → [Functions], you can:

• Edit the prompt text of built-in actions
• Add custom actions (name + prompt + default model)
• Drag and drop adjust the order of actions in the toolbar
• drag infrequently used actions to the temporary area below to 'disable' them

Toolbar / result window appearance

Toolbar:

• Compact mode: only icons are shown, no text, saving screen space

Result window (section [Function Window]):

• Follow toolbar: the window pops up attached to the toolbar (enabled by default); if turned off, it is always centered
• Remember size: the window size manually adjusted this time will be retained next time
• Auto-close: click outside the window to close it
• Always on top: always floats above other apps
• Opacity: adjustable from 20%–100%

Search engine

The built-in [Search] action in Selection Assistant can use preset engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.). The configuration entry is in [Settings] → [Selection Assistant] → [Functions]: find Search this item, click the gear icon at the far right of the row to open the [Set Search Engine] dialog, where you can choose from presets or add a custom engine; use {{queryString}} to indicate the search term location.

App filtering (advanced)

Can be set in [Settings] → [Selection Assistant] → [Advanced] → [App Filtering] blacklist / whitelist, so Selection Assistant only takes effect in specified apps (whitelist) or does not pop up in specified apps (blacklist).

• macOS: enter the app's Bundle ID (e.g. com.google.Chrome,com.apple.mail)
• Windows: enter the app's executable filename (e.g. chrome.exe,Cherry Studio.exe)

Models used

Selection Assistant uses by default global default chat model, and you can also specify a separate model for each action.

Tips and tricks

• If the toolbar does not appear on macOS, check whether Cherry Studio is checked in [System Settings] → [Privacy & Security] → [Accessibility]
• If the toolbar pops up too often because you accidentally selected text, switch to Ctrl key trigger mode
• If the toolbar icons are too many and crowd the screen, enable Compact mode
• Want to do chained actions like 'read aloud directly after translation'? Copy the 'Translate' result and then call Quick Assistant Continue processing

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Get help and submit feedback

If you encounter any questions, bugs, or have suggestions for feature improvements during configuration or use, please refer to Feedback and Suggestions for the official channels provided.