KanjiWidget

Apache-2.0, a solo developer's project that went open source in August 2026 and had reached v1.5.0 by late September — it is updated often. The author suggested it through our GitHub, and we checked it against our usual standards: source, licence and release packages are all public.

What it removes is the step of opening a flashcard app at all. Cards live in a small translucent window in a corner of the desktop and rotate on their own, so a glance between coding or reading counts as a repetition. In active-recall mode the reading and meaning stay hidden until you hover. When you do want to sit down and study, right-click into the review window and grade cards Again / Hard / Good / Easy; scheduling uses FSRS, the same algorithm as modern Anki.

Worth noting:

• Decks. Built-in JLPT N5 (80 kanji) and N4 (170 kanji) decks, with furigana on example sentences. Custom cards are not limited by level and can hold a whole word, reading and example.
• Anki import. Reads .apkg directly into a separate deck — text only, no images or audio, and Anki review progress is not carried over.
• Fully offline. Settings, progress and review history sit in a local SQLite database; no account, ads or telemetry, and no network access during normal use.
• Cards can also be exported as 1920×1080 images for the Windows lock-screen slideshow.

To be clear about:

• Windows only. No macOS, Linux or mobile version, and no sync across devices.
• Packages are not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen may warn on first run; SHA-256 checksums are published alongside each release.
• The interface is in English and Russian only.
• The project is young and has a single maintainer, so long-term upkeep remains to be seen.