How to translate a screenshot, or any text on your screen
The short answer
To translate a screenshot for free, open translate.google.com, choose the Images tab and upload or drop the picture. To translate text in a Windows app without saving a file first, copy it with Snipping Tool's Text actions or PowerToys Text Extractor and paste it into any translator. Or use an AI screen translator such as ScreenFeel: press Print Screen, select the text and choose Translate, which keeps headings, tables and lists in place.
In a browser: Google Translate's image tab
- Take the screenshot (Win+Shift+S) and save it, or keep it on the clipboard.
- Open translate.google.com and choose the Images tab.
- Upload, drop or paste the image (JPG, PNG or WebP), then pick the target language. The translation is drawn over the picture, and you can copy the translated text.
This is free and good for a quick look, but it is a round trip through a file and a browser for every capture, and the picture is uploaded to Google.
On Windows: copy the text, then translate it
When the text is in an app that will not let you select it, recognise it first and translate it second. On Windows 11, Snipping Tool's Text actions copy the text out of any capture; on Windows 10 or 11, PowerToys Text Extractor (Win+Shift+T) does it in one drag. Then paste into the translator you prefer.
Two catches. Windows can only recognise scripts whose language pack is installed, so Japanese, Chinese or Korean text may come back empty on an English PC. And the layout is lost: a menu, a table or a form becomes one long run of words before it is translated.
Translate in place with ScreenFeel
ScreenFeel's Translate lens reads and translates in one step, straight off the screen, from whatever language is showing into any of 36 target languages. It keeps the original structure: headings stay headings, tables stay tables, buttons stay short. Product names, code, URLs and numbers are left exactly as they were, and if the text is already in your language it says so and transcribes it instead.
- Set your target language once in ScreenFeel's settings.
- Press Print Screen and drag around the text — a game, an untranslated app, a scanned letter, a colleague's shared screen.
- Choose Translate. Copy the result, or ask a follow-up such as “is this formal?” underneath.
Games, videos and software with no version in your language
These are where on-screen translation earns its keep, because there is no text to copy at all. Capture only the part with text — a dialogue box, a quest log, a subtitle — rather than the whole screen: the result is faster, cheaper and easier to read. For a video, pause on the frame first.
Getting a better translation from a screenshot
- Include the context. A button that says “Open” translates differently next to a file than next to a shop's opening hours.
- Avoid cut-off lines. A sentence split at the edge of the capture is translated as two fragments.
- Make small text bigger first. Zoom the page or app before capturing; tiny text is where recognition errors creep in.
- Keep names untranslated. Good translators leave product names and code alone; if yours does not, say so in a follow-up.
Questions people also ask
Can Google Translate translate a screenshot?
Yes. On a computer, use the Images tab at translate.google.com and upload the screenshot. On a phone, the Google Translate app's camera mode can translate a photo or an image from your gallery.
How do I translate Japanese, Chinese or Korean text on my PC screen?
Windows' built-in text recognition needs the matching language pack installed before it can read those scripts. An AI translator that reads the image directly, such as ScreenFeel's Translate lens, does not depend on installed language packs.
Is it private to translate a screenshot online?
Online translators receive the image you upload, under their own terms. ScreenFeel keeps your captures on your PC and sends one image only when you run a lens, to a model that keeps nothing and trains on nothing.