Android app¶

Search your .mdx .slob .bgl .dsl .ifo .zim dictionaries on the phone.

The app is a small window around the same server the desktop runs. There is no account, no upload and no network traffic: the server listens on the phone's own loopback address, and the window reads from there.

You need Android 8.0 or newer on a 64-bit (arm64) device. Every phone sold since about 2017 should be able to run wudict.

Install¶

1. Download wudict-android-arm64.apk from the releases page.
2. Open the file in your file manager or in the download notification.
3. Android asks once to allow install unknown apps for that file manager. Allow it, then confirm the install.

Grant the storage access (wudict FOSS version only)¶

The app asks for storage access on first run. Choose Grant access, then turn on All files access on the next screen.

The app reads dictionaries from a folder that is not its own — Internal storage ▸ Dictionaries — and Android requires a special permission in this case (the google play flavour uses SAF instead).

Choosing Later is safe. The server still starts, and reports an empty dictionary folder. The app asks again the next time you open it.

Copy your dictionaries (Android FOSS version only)¶

Put the dictionary files, for example, in Internal storage ▸ Dictionaries. Use a file manager, a USB cable, or adb push.

Subfolders are read too so you can organize the folders according to your needs.

IMPORTANT: The folder structure can be used for lemmatization — for dictionary formats that do not specify the headword language and which do not contain a valid language prefix in their file name, such as e.g. es-fr-larousse.slob, a parent folder such as es can serve as a language hint for lemmatization.

Copy every part of a dictionary, not only the main file:

Open the app, open the ☰ panel and tap ♻️ Rescan folders. New dictionaries appear in the list.

Verify: the dictionary list in the ☰ panel names your files..

Look up a word from another app¶

You do not have to switch apps to read a definition. Three ways in, all producing the same floating window over what you were reading:

• Select the word you want to look up — the selection toolbar should have a wuDict entry, next to Copy and Translate.
• Share the selection. Use Share → wuDict when an app hides the toolbar, or when the passage spans several paragraphs.
• Open a wudict://lookup?q=word link. For automation apps, note apps and scripts.

Back, or a tap outside the window, returns to the original screen. The window is not kept in the recents list.

am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d "wudict://lookup?q=phubbing"

Where the app keeps its files¶

The second folder is app-owned. It survives updates and is deleted when you uninstall the app; your Dictionaries folder stays intact.

Removing dictionaries¶

Click or tap ☰, find the dictionary, and tap its file row (e.g. Oxford.mdx) to expand it — this will reveal 🗑 Remove…. The panel shows how much disk space the dictionary takes on your phone. There is no way to undo the Delete all action! — see Removing a dictionary for details.

Battery and memory¶

The app is built to preserve battery and minimize resource usage.

• Off screen, the server uses one core instead of all of them.
• MEMORY_LIMIT is set on Android - a sixteenth of the device's RAM, between 192 MB and 384 MB - and unset on a desktop, where the machine manages its own memory.
• PREVIEW_MEMORY, what dictionaries that are not yet prepared may hold open between searches, is a third of that (64-128 MB) against 1 GB on a desktop.
• MORPH_CACHE is 1 on Android against 2 on a desktop: one language of word-form data is held at a time, and a second language displaces it rather than adding to it.
• The keyboard hides as soon as you scroll an article, which gives the definition the full screen.

What is different from the desktop¶

Next¶

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