SubMiner/README.md

SubMiner

Look up words with Yomitan or Hachidori, mine them to Anki, and track your immersion without leaving mpv

Installation · Requirements · Usage · Documentation

Features

Dictionary Lookups

Hover over any word in the subtitles to open the full Yomitan popup with definitions, pitch accent, and frequency data. SubMiner bundles its own Yomitan, separate from any browser install.

Yomitan remains the default. Select the bundled Hachidori backend with dictionaryBackend: "hachidori" and restart SubMiner. The tray opens the selected backend's settings. See dictionary setup for importing dictionaries, linking an external Hachidori host, and configuring Anki.

Instant Anki Mining

Create an Anki card from the exact playback moment with one key press, click, or controller input. SubMiner fills in the sentence, an audio clip, and a screenshot or animated image.

Reading Annotations

Subtitles are annotated as they play with frequency highlighting, JLPT tags, N+1 targeting, and character names from a generated dictionary. Particles and grammar-only tokens stay plain so the words worth learning stand out.

Immersion Dashboard

A stats dashboard tracks watch time, vocabulary growth, mining throughput, session history, and trends. Everything stays on your machine, with no third-party tracking.

Integrations

YouTube	Play YouTube URLs with subtitle tracks picked by your language priorities, or choose tracks yourself in the overlay picker (Ctrl+Alt+C). Requires yt-dlp
AniList	Automatic episode tracking and progress sync
Jellyfin	Browse your Jellyfin library, or cast to SubMiner from any Jellyfin client. Setup and discovery live in the tray menu
Jimaku	Search and download Japanese subtitles. Requires a free Jimaku API key
TsukiHime	Search and download subtitles extracted from anime releases, with Japanese and secondary-language tabs (Ctrl+Shift+T). Requires xz on your PATH
Subtitle generation	Transcribe a video's audio into Japanese subtitles locally from the generation modal (Ctrl+Shift+G), the subtitle sidebar, or the launcher. SubMiner can download models for you; optional Silero speech detection helps focus on dialogue. Requires whisper.cpp and FFmpeg. Setup guide
AniSkip	Automatic intro detection with chapter markers and a one-key skip (TAB by default)
alass / ffsubsync	Retime a subtitle against the audio or another subtitle track (Ctrl+Alt+S). Requires alass or ffsubsync; set subsync.alass_path or subsync.ffsubsync_path if they are not in /usr/bin
WebSocket	Plain subtitle feed plus a dedicated annotated feed for texthooker pages and custom tools

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Requirements

SubMiner runs on Linux, macOS 11+, and Windows 10+. Only mpv is required to run it (plus fuse2 for the Linux AppImage). Mining cards also needs Anki with the AnkiConnect add-on. Everything else is optional.

Dependency	Status	What it does
mpv	Required	The video player SubMiner draws over
fuse2	Required (Linux)	Running the AppImage
Anki + AnkiConnect	Required to mine	Card creation from the Yomitan popup
ffmpeg	Recommended	Audio clips and screenshots on cards
MeCab + mecab-ipadic	Recommended	More accurate N+1, JLPT, and frequency highlighting
xdotool + xwininfo	Required (X11)	Window tracking on desktops other than Hyprland or Sway
yt-dlp	Optional	YouTube playback
xz	Optional	TsukiHime subtitle downloads (most Linux distros already have it)
alass / ffsubsync	Optional	Subtitle sync
whisper.cpp	Optional	Subtitle generation
guessit	Optional	Better title, season, and episode detection for AniSkip and AniList
fzf / rofi	Optional	Video picker in the subminer launcher (rofi is Linux only)
chafa, ffmpegthumbnailer	Optional	Thumbnail previews in the launcher pickers

Platform-specific install commands

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S --needed mpv ffmpeg
paru -S --needed mecab-git mecab-ipadic   # MeCab is only in the AUR

On desktops other than Hyprland or Sway, also install xdotool and xorg-xwininfo.

macOS:

brew install mpv ffmpeg mecab mecab-ipadic

Windows:

winget install shinchiro.mpv
winget install Gyan.FFmpeg

Then reopen your terminal and check mpv --version and ffmpeg -version. ffmpeg must be on PATH; mpv does not have to be. If mpv is not found, either add its folder (usually %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\mpv) to PATH or enter the full path to mpv.exe during first-run setup.

Scoop is the alternative if you want one package manager for everything. It is the only one that also carries xz:

scoop bucket add extras
scoop install extras/mpv main/ffmpeg main/yt-dlp main/xz

See the installation guide for Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora commands and the full optional package lists.

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Quick Start

1. Install SubMiner

Arch Linux (AUR)

paru -S subminer-bin

Includes the AppImage and the subminer command.

Linux (AppImage)

mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
wget https://github.com/ksyasuda/SubMiner/releases/latest/download/SubMiner.AppImage -O ~/.local/bin/SubMiner.AppImage \
 && chmod +x ~/.local/bin/SubMiner.AppImage

The AppImage is all you need. First-run setup can install the optional subminer command, which runs on a copy of Bun bundled with the app, so you do not need Bun installed.

macOS (DMG)

Download the latest DMG from GitHub Releases and drag SubMiner.app into /Applications.

Then enable SubMiner under System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility, or the overlay cannot follow the mpv window. If macOS blocks the first launch, right-click the app and choose Open.

Windows

Download and run the latest installer (SubMiner-<version>.exe) from GitHub Releases. A portable .zip is also available.

From source

See the build-from-source guide.

2. Launch & Set Up

Start SubMiner and the setup window opens on first launch. It creates your config file, imports Yomitan dictionaries (you need at least one for lookups), and can install the subminer command. On Windows it also creates a SubMiner mpv shortcut.

subminer app --setup                     # AUR
~/.local/bin/SubMiner.AppImage --setup   # AppImage

On macOS, open SubMiner.app from /Applications. On Windows, run SubMiner from the Start menu. To reopen setup later, run subminer app --setup.

For card creation, keep Anki open with AnkiConnect installed. SubMiner connects to it at its default address with no extra setup.

3. Mine

subminer video.mkv          # play a video with SubMiner
subminer /path/to/dir       # pick a file with fzf
subminer -R /path/to/dir    # pick a file with rofi (Linux only)
subminer -H                 # watch history: replay, next, or previous episode
subminer doctor             # check your setup

On Windows, double-click the SubMiner mpv shortcut or drag a video file onto it.

Starting mpv some other way? See Launching mpv yourself for the IPC socket option the overlay needs.

Documentation

Full guides on configuration, Anki setup, Jellyfin, immersion tracking, and more: docs.subminer.moe

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Acknowledgments

SubMiner builds on the work of these open-source projects:

Project	Role
ani-skip	AniSkip API client for anime intro/outro skip timestamps
Anacreon-Script	Inspiration for the mining workflow
asbplayer	Inspiration for subtitle sidebar and logic for YouTube subtitle parsing
Bee's Character Dictionary	Character name recognition in subtitles
Bun	Bundled runtime for the subminer command-line launcher
GameSentenceMiner	Inspiration for Electron overlay with Yomitan integration
jellyfin-mpv-shim	Jellyfin integration
Jimaku.cc	Japanese subtitle search and downloads
Renji's Texthooker Page	Base for the WebSocket texthooker integration
Yomitan	Default dictionary engine and morphological parser
Hachidori	Alternative dictionary backend, powered by HoshiDicts
yomitan-jlpt-vocab	JLPT level tags for vocabulary

License

SubMiner is released under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

Release packages also bundle an unmodified copy of Bun, which is MIT licensed and statically links JavaScriptCore (LGPL 2.0) and TinyCC (LGPL 2.1). Its license texts and third-party notices ship inside the app under resources/bun/licenses, and each release publishes bun-v1.3.5-source.tar.gz with the corresponding source. See Bundled Bun runtime.