Free and open source, no root needed

Read any screen
in your language.

Screen Translator is a free, open-source Android screen translator for games, manga and visual novels. Tap the floating ball to read text with OCR, translate it and show the result over the original — with offline models or AI on your own PC.

  • Works offline
  • Runs AI on your own PC
  • Apache-licensed
The same manga page re-lettered in Chinese inside the speech bubbles

Japanese → Chinese

How it works

One tap. Every part swappable.

Like cells in a living tissue, each stage works on its own. If one provider goes down, the rest keep going.

  1. Capture

    MediaProjection, or Shizuku to skip the prompt each session.

  2. Read

    Text recognition on the phone, on your PC, or in the cloud.

  3. Translate

    LLMs, DeepL, NiuTrans, Google — or models that run offline.

  4. Show

    On each text box, in a floating window, or blended into the art.

  5. Speak optional

    Phone voices, your own voice server, or an online voice.

For people who run their own AI

Your PC does the heavy lifting.

Point the phone at OCR and translation models running on your own computer. Your hardware does the work over your home network — faster than a phone alone, and cheaper than paying a cloud service for every line.

  • Open, editable prompts

    Rewrite the translation prompt for your game, genre or tone. Your edits are kept, never overwritten.

  • Any OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible server

    Ollama or your own model server: set a base URL and model name, and results stream in as they're generated.

  • OCR on your desktop

    Send screenshots to Umi-OCR or LunaTranslator on your PC for sharper recognition.

  • Stays on your network

    Plain HTTP is allowed only to machines on your home network; anything public must use HTTPS. DeepLX and your own voice server plug in the same way.

Your phone

Captures the screen and shows the translation

Your PC

Umi-OCR LunaTranslator Ollama DeepLX Voice server

OpenAI-compatible translator

Connected
Base URLhttp://my-pc.local/v1/
Model[your-local-model]
Prompt template

Translate this game dialogue into natural, casual Chinese. Keep names from the glossary. Keep each line short enough to fit its speech bubble.

Cloud service

Billed for every request, and screenshots leave your home.

Your own PC

Hardware you already own — no per-request bills, nothing leaves your network.

Adapt to screen

Game & manga translation, on your screen.

Adapt to screen picks colors, background and text size for every region. On comics, the bubble detector erases the source text, repairs the background and fits the lettering to each bubble's shape.

Game screen with translations blended into the interface by Adapt to screen

Sandship, Chinese to English

Floating window

Keeps clear of your controls.

Every line gathers into one draggable, resizable window that stays off joysticks and buttons. Lock it, and it ignores every touch.

A visual novel on a phone in landscape with a locked floating translation window above the game controls

Word lookup

Circle a word, get a pocket dictionary.

Pronunciation, part of speech, meanings and example sentences, each with read-aloud.

Word-lookup card showing the word Activity with pronunciation, meanings and example sentences

One-finger control

Long-press for everything else.

An arc menu blooms from the ball: loop, re-pick region, language and preset switches — in whatever order you like.

Arc menu fanning out from the floating ball

Triggers

Start it however your hands are busy.

  • Tap the ball — whole screen or one word
  • Auto — on a timer, or once all the text appears
  • Volume keys — hold both, eyes on the game
  • Select text in any app, then pick Screen Translator
  • Quick Settings — start or stop from the shade

Japanese manga, vertical text included

Reads right-to-left columns, skips furigana and joins sentences split across bubbles.

Names stay consistent

Per-game glossaries and a translation library keep characters and terms the same.

Hear it read aloud

Source, translation or a selected passage, with pause and resume.

Styled your way

Themes, a color picker, outlines, shadows and your own fonts.

More ways to translate

Beyond the live screen.

Batch translation

Pick a stack of images, or share screenshots straight to the app. Tasks keep running after you leave, and you can save translated copies that keep the original layout and fonts.

Home screen with a batch translation card, a New task button and the latest finished task

Input translation

Write in your own language, tap the floating ball, and the text in the input field turns into the language of the game or chat — ready to send.

Extract text only

Select an area and pull out its text without translating it. Copy it anywhere, or have it read aloud.

Translate when stopped

Turn on auto-translate and the app waits for the screen to stop moving, then translates by itself — no more tapping the floating ball for every new line.

Engines

Bring your favorite engine. Or none at all.

Read

On your phone

ML KitPaddleOCRManga OCR

Your PC or the cloud

Umi-OCRLunaTranslatorPP-OCR OnlineBaiduTencentYoudao

Translate

On your phone

ML KitSakuraHy-MT

AI and online services

DeepSeekChatGPTClaudeZhipuOpenAI-compatibleDeepLDeepLXNiuTransGoogle

Speak

On your phone

System voices

Self-hosted or online

Your voice serverVolcengineMiniMaxMiMo

Off by default, and never slows recognition or translation.

Runs on your phone, works offlineYour server or an online service — some may charge

Screen Translator home screen with current status and the capture service card

Your screen, your choice

Fully offline, fully self-hosted — or anything in between.

  • Screenshots can stay on the phone

    On-device recognition, translation and voice work with no network at all.

  • Keys stay encrypted, never exported

    API keys, prompts and presets live in encrypted local storage.

  • Secure outside your home network

    Unencrypted connections are allowed only to servers on your own network.

  • Settings that move with you

    Export presets, glossaries and fonts in one bundle — without the keys.

Quick start

Up and running in minutes.

Read the full guide
  1. Install

    Get the APK from GitHub Releases. Needs Android 8.0 or later.

  2. Set it up

    The guide walks you through languages, use case and engine, one page at a time.

  3. Go back to your game

    The floating ball rests quietly at the edge of the screen.

  4. Tap, read, listen

    The translation appears over the original. Long-press for more.

Next screen, already readable.

Free and open source. No account, no ads, no root.