How to translate text in an image on a computer

On any computer, you can use the Google Translate website: open the Images tab, upload the picture, and copy the translated text or download the translated image. On a Mac, Live Text in Preview or Photos translates selected text without opening a website. On Windows 11, Snipping Tool can copy the text out of an image on your screen so you can paste it into a translator. Which one to use depends on whether you need the text or a translated image.

Translated text or a translated image?

Method 1: Google Translate website (Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS)

From Google Translate Help:

1. Go to translate.google.com and select the Images tab.
2. Choose the source language, or Detect language, and the target language.
3. Click Browse your computer and select the image.
4. Use Copy text to copy the translation, or Download translation to save the translated image. Turn on Show original to see the original text side by side with the translation.

Google describes the service as free of charge, and it runs in the browser, with nothing to install. Two limits: Google says translating small, unclear or stylized text may result in lower accuracy, and its help page does not document accepted file types or size limits. The help page calls the download the translated image but does not describe how that image is built, so check how the layout comes out before you publish it. For a side-by-side view of where it fits, see Google Translate compared with TranslateMyImage.

Method 2: Google Lens in Chrome (images on web pages)

When the image is on a web page, you do not need to download it first. In Chrome, right-click the image and select Search with Google Lens (Chrome Help). Google's help page says Google must be your default search engine, that results appear in the side panel, and that you can highlight text on the page to search it. It does not document a translation option, so if you do not see one in your version of Chrome, save the image and use the Google Translate website (Method 1), or on Windows capture it with Snipping Tool (Method 4).

Privacy note: Google states that when you search with Lens in Chrome, a screenshot of the page and page data are sent to Google, kept only temporarily to process the query and not used for training.

Method 3: Mac — Live Text in Preview or Photos

Apple's Preview guide:

1. Open the image in Preview.
2. Hold the pointer over the text and drag to select it. If you cannot select anything, choose Tools → Text Selection.
3. Control-click the selection, choose Translate, then choose a language.

In Photos for Mac, it is the same idea: open the photo, Control-click the selected text and choose Translate. Apple notes that translation is not available in all languages and may not be available in some countries or regions. Live Text translates the text you select. Apple's Mac User Guide adds that you can download translation languages in System Settings → General → Language & Region → Translation Languages, and select On-Device Mode there to process translations on your Mac, even when connected to the internet.

Method 4: Windows — Snipping Tool Text actions, then a translator

On Windows 11, Snipping Tool can read the text in a capture (Microsoft Support):

1. Press Windows logo key + Shift + S and capture the part of the screen that shows the image.
2. Open the capture in the Snipping Tool window and select Text actions.
3. Select the text you need or use Copy all text.
4. Paste it into Google Translate, DeepL or any translator.

Microsoft states that all text recognition is performed locally on your device, which makes it a reasonable first step for images you would rather not upload. The text you paste into a web translator is then sent to that service.

Method 5: DeepL desktop app

DeepL's apps translate text in images (DeepL: Translate images). On Windows, open the Images tab and drag in or upload the image, or use the screen capture tool. On a Mac (macOS 14 or later), drag the image into the text area or use the screen capture tool. The result is translated text: DeepL says the Windows app extracts the text from the image and moves it to the text translator (DeepL Help Center). DeepL lists BMP, PNG, JPG/JPEG, TIF/TIFF and GIF files, says handwriting may not translate accurately, and limits this feature to 1,500 characters a day on the free plan. DeepL also offers a separate file translation route, in beta, for PNG and JPEG images, which returns a translated image (DeepL Help Center); the details are in our DeepL image translation comparison.

When you need the translated image itself

Most methods above give you text or a translation to read on screen; Google Translate's download and DeepL's file translation do return an image, so test them on your own files. Text is enough to understand something. It is not enough when the image is the deliverable: a slide visual, a product image, a diagram in a manual, an interface screenshot in a help article.

For that, TranslateMyImage rebuilds the image with the translated text in the original layout:

1. Open the image translator and upload a JPG, PNG or WebP file up to 10 MB.
2. Choose the source language or auto-detect, and the target: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean or Chinese.
3. Pick a mode if it fits, in the menu that starts on Default mode: Technical documentation for diagrams, manuals and measurements, Marketing for ads, Manga / comics for speech bubbles. This menu only shows in wide windows; signed-in users can also set a Default Business Type in their profile.
4. Download the new image and compare it with the original.

What to expect: the image is generated by an AI model, and our terms ask you to review results before you publish them; check digits, small print and logos in particular. You get an image, not the text, and you cannot edit the translation in the browser. The diagram translator and screenshot translator guides cover what to check for those two formats, and our comparison of image translators lists other tools by the kind of output they produce.

Tips that apply to every method

• Start from the best file you have. The original PNG or JPG beats a screenshot of a thumbnail. If you must take a screenshot, zoom in first.
• Crop to the text. Remove borders, ads and unrelated panels so the tool reads only what matters.
• Check the detected language when a tool shows it, and pick the right one if it is wrong.
• Check numbers and names. OCR and AI tools can misread digits as well as letters: prices, part numbers, dates.
• Think about privacy before uploading. An image you upload to a website is sent to that service. For confidential material, prefer Snipping Tool's local text recognition, or Live Text with On-Device Mode on a Mac, and paste only the text you are comfortable sharing.

On a phone instead? Here is how to translate a picture on your phone.