Translate images

You can use your phone’s camera to translate text  in the Translate app. For example, you can use your camera to translate signs or handwritten notes.

Translate text in photos

You can translate text from new photos and photos you’ve already taken in the Translate app.

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Translate app .
2. At the top, choose the language you want to translate to and from.
   • Tip: If you want the app to detect the language automatically, tap Detect language.
3. Beneath the text box, tap Camera .
   • To take a new photo and translate any text it contains: At the bottom center, tap Scan .
   • To choose an existing photo to translate: At the bottom right, tap Import .
4. Use your finger to highlight the text you want to translate.

Turn "Improve camera input" on or off

When you use Scan  or Import  to translate photos in the Translate app, those photos are sent to Google for text recognition. To allow Google to retain images for future product improvement, you can turn “Improve camera input” on. 

To turn "Improve camera input" on or off:

1. Open the Google Translate app .
2. At the bottom right, tap Settings  Camera input.
3. Turn Improve camera input on or off.

Translate what you find through your camera

For some languages, you can point your phone’s camera at text to translate it. Translations of small, baldly lit, or stylized text may not be accurate.

1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Translate app .
2. If needed, select the languages.
   • At the top left: Choose the source language you want to translate or tap Detect language.
   • At the top right: Choose the target language you want to translate to.
3. Tap Camera . Instant .
4. Point your camera at the text you want to translate.

Important: If you're unable to scan the image, tap Capture .

If your translation is unclear, save the picture and select it from your gallery or camera roll.

Supported languages

You can translate these source languages into any of the languages supported by Google Translate:

Afrikaans  Albanian  Arabic  Azerbaijani  Basque  Belarusian  Bengali  Bosnian  Bulgarian  Catalan  Cebuano  Chichewa  Chinese Corsican  Croatian  Czech  Danish  Dutch  English  Esperanto  Estonian  Filipino  Finnish  French  Frisian  Galician  German  Greek  Haitian Creole  Hausa

Hawaiian  Hindi  Hmong  Hungarian  Icelandic  Igbo  Indonesian  Irish  Italian  Japanese  Javanese  Kazakh  Korean  Kurdish  Kyrgyz  Latin  Latvian  Lithuanian  Luxembourgish  Macedonian  Malagasy  Malay  Maltese  Maori  Marathi  Mongolian  Nepali  Norwegian  Pashto Persian

Polish  Portuguese  Romanian  Russian  Samoan  Scots Gaelic  Serbian  Sesotho  Shona  Sindhi  Slovak  Slovenian  Somali  Spanish  Sundanese  Swahili  Swedish  Tajik  Thai  Turkish  Ukrainian  Urdu  Uzbek  Vietnamese  Welsh  Xhosa  Yoruba  Zulu