Translate images

Using the Translate app, you can use your phone’s camera to translate text in the world around you, like signs or handwritten notes.

Translate using your camera

For some languages, you can translate text just by pointing your phone’s camera lens. Translations of small, badly lit, or stylized text might be less accurate.

Open the Translate app .
In the top-left corner, tap the language shown tap the language you’re translating.
In the top-right corner, tap the language shown tap a language you read.
Tap Instant translate . If it’s not there, tap Take photo .
Point your camera at the text you want to translate.
- If you’ve downloaded the language and it’s available for instant translation, any text is translated on your screen.
- To turn on instant translation, tap Toggle instant translation . You might be asked to download the language.
- If instant translation isn’t available or you can’t download the language, tap Take photo . Then highlight the text you want to translate with your finger.

Notes: To pause the camera, in the bottom right corner of the screen, tap Pause . For some languages, like Arabic, the Pause icon might be different. To resume, tap Play .

Translate images already on your device

You can also translate text in photos you’ve already taken.

Open the Translate app .
In the top-left corner, tap the language shown tap the language you’re translating.
In the top-right corner, tap the language shown tap a language you read.
Tap Instant translate .
Tap Import .
Choose the photo you want to translate.
Use your finger to highlight the text you want to translate.

Languages that can be translated instantly

If they’ve been downloaded to your device, you can translate text in images back and forth between various languages, including:

English Spanish
English Russian
English Portugese
English French
English Italian
English German
English Bulgarian
English Catalan
English Chinese
English Croatian
English Czech
English Danish
English Dutch
English Filipino
English Finnish
English Hungarian
English Japanese
English Indonesian
English Lithuanian
English Norwegian
English Polish
English Romanian
English Slovak
English Swedish
English Turkish
English Ukrainian

You can translate text in images to these languages:

English Arabic
English Hindi
English Thai
German Arabic

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