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How to Translate Text Inside Screenshots on Mac

Translate text in a Mac screenshot with Live Text in Preview or Quick Look, offline with On-Device Mode, plus whole-image options for macOS 26 and 27.

9 min readUpdated
BaziFounder & maker of Pizazoo

To translate text in a screenshot on a Mac, open it in Preview, drag across the words, Control-click the selection and choose Translate. That is Live Text plus the Mac's built-in translation, and it works the same way in macOS Tahoe 26 and macOS 27 (and back to macOS Monterey 12). Download your languages and turn on On-Device Mode, and the translation is processed on your Mac instead of on a server.

The Mac has no built-in button that translates a whole screenshot in place, the way the iPhone's Translate app can. Below are the built-in steps, the ways to translate an entire image, how to keep it offline, and where a screenshot app helps.

Why translate text inside a screenshot?

Screenshots often hold text you cannot copy and do not read: an error dialog in Japanese, a hotel receipt in Italian, a post in Korean, a settings screen or documentation page in German. The old workflow was to run the image through a separate OCR tool, paste the text into a translation website, and hope nobody minded that a receipt with your name on it had just gone to a third-party server.

On a current Mac, most of that is built in, and it can stay on the device.

How do I translate a screenshot on Mac?

Apple documents these steps for Preview in macOS Monterey 12 through macOS 27 (Apple: Live Text in Preview):

  • Double-click the screenshot to open it in Preview. Mac screenshots save to the Desktop unless you changed the location.
  • Hold the pointer over the text. When it turns into a text cursor, drag to select the words. Live Text translates what you select, not the whole image, so select everything you need.
  • Control-click the selection and choose Translate followed by the selected text.
  • In the Translate window, use the language pop-up menus to set the source language and the language you want (Apple: Translate text on Mac).
  • Click Copy Translation to put it on the clipboard, or click the Play button to hear it.

If nothing selects, choose Tools > Text Selection in Preview's menu bar, and check that Live Text is turned on in System Settings > General > Language & Region (Apple). Apple adds that translation "isn't available in all languages and may not be available in some countries or regions."

Can I translate a screenshot without opening Preview?

Yes, in two other places:

  • Quick Look. Select the screenshot in Finder or on the desktop and press the Space bar. Live Text recognizes text in Quick Look as well as in Safari, Photos and Preview (MacRumors), so you can select the words and Control-click them without opening an app.
  • Photos. iPhone and iPad screenshots appear in Photos on your Mac when you use iCloud Photos. Double-click one, select the text, Control-click, choose Translate and pick a language (Apple: Live Text in Photos).

If the screenshot shows a document or email you still have, translate the original instead. Apple's guide says the same Control-click Translate command works on selected text in documents, emails, messages and webpages, including some third-party apps.

Is there a Translate app on Mac?

Not as a separate app in Apple's documentation. iPhone and iPad have Apple's Translate app, but the Mac User Guide for macOS Tahoe 26 and macOS 27 describes translation as a system feature instead: select text, Control-click, choose Translate (Apple).

Safari adds one more option. When a webpage can be translated, a Translate button appears in the Smart Search field; click it and choose a language (Apple: Translate a webpage in Safari). If your screenshot came from a website, translating the live page is often quicker than translating a picture of it. Note that Apple says "Siri and Safari always process translations online."

How does on-device translation work on Mac?

macOS can translate without sending text to Apple's servers, but you have to set it up. These steps are the same in macOS Tahoe 26 and macOS 27 (Apple):

  • Choose Apple menu > System Settings, click General, then click Language & Region.
  • Click Translation Languages and download the languages you use. Downloaded languages let you translate when you are offline.
  • Select On-Device Mode "to process translations on your Mac, even when connected to the internet."

Two caveats from Apple: offline translations "may be less accurate than translations processed using Apple servers," and Safari and Siri always translate online, whatever this setting says.

Can I translate the whole screenshot at once?

Not with a built-in Mac tool. Apple's Preview and Photos guides describe translating selected text only. There is no Mac version of the iPhone Translate app's camera view, which lays a translation over an entire image (see how to translate a screenshot on iPhone). Your options:

  • Visual Intelligence in macOS 27. With Siri AI (beta) turned on, press Command-Shift-Space bar to select a window or Command-Shift-6 to drag over part of the screen, then ask about it (Apple). MacRumors lists translating text among the things you can ask for (MacRumors); Apple's guide does not list a dedicated Translate button. It needs a Mac with M1 or later (or MacBook Neo) with Siri set to a supported language, English to start. It works on what is on screen, so open the screenshot first. macOS Tahoe 26 does not have it.
  • Google Translate's website, which translates an uploaded image (next section).
  • A screenshot app with a translation overlay, such as Pizazoo (further down).

Can Google Translate translate a screenshot?

Yes. Google Translate's website accepts images on a computer (Google Translate Help):

  • In your browser, go to Google Translate and select the Images tab at the top.
  • Pick the source language or choose Detect language, then pick the language to translate into (for example English).
  • Click Browse your computer and choose the screenshot.
  • Turn on Show original to compare the two, click Copy text to copy the translation, or click Download translation to save the translated image.

Google notes that small, unclear or stylized text lowers accuracy. The bigger trade-off is privacy: the whole screenshot is uploaded to Google, so do not use this for receipts, bank pages, medical letters or work chats. The built-in Mac route above keeps that content on your Mac.

How do I translate lots of screenshots at once?

Build a Finder Quick Action in the Shortcuts app. Apple lists Translate Text and Detect Language among Shortcuts' transform actions on Mac (Apple), and Extract Text from Image uses Live Text to read an image's text on Mac, iPhone and iPad (Matthew Cassinelli):

  • In Shortcuts, create a shortcut with Extract Text from Image, then Translate Text (choose the target language), then Copy to Clipboard.
  • Open the shortcut's details and select Use as Quick Action.
  • Choose Apple menu > System Settings > Privacy & Security > Extensions > Finder and turn the shortcut on (Apple).
  • In Finder, Control-click a screenshot and choose Quick Actions > your shortcut.

Apple does not say whether the Translate Text action follows On-Device Mode, so if that matters, test it with Wi-Fi turned off.

What can you translate?

Anything that Live Text (or another OCR engine) can read. In practice:

  • Foreign-language interfaces: error dialogs, settings screens and installers in another language
  • Receipts and invoices captured while travelling
  • Documentation and code comments in languages you don't read
  • Social media posts and articles screenshotted from another language
  • Menus, signs and transit screens photographed on your iPhone and AirDropped to your Mac

Check numbers, names and code against the original. Text recognition and translation can each get a character wrong, and in a price or an error code one character matters.

Which languages can a Mac translate?

Apple's macOS Feature Availability page lists these languages for system-wide translation (Apple):

  • Arabic, Danish, Dutch, English (UK and US), Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay
  • Mandarin Chinese (China mainland), Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Spain), Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese

Live Text has its own, separate language list on the same page, and text has to be recognized before it can be translated. For a less common language, check both lists; they change with macOS updates.

Why is there no Translate option when I Control-click?

  • Nothing is selected. Translate appears only for selected text. In Preview, turn on Tools > Text Selection.
  • Live Text is off. Turn it on in System Settings > General > Language & Region.
  • The language or region isn't supported. Check the lists above.
  • The text is too small or blurry to recognize. Zoom in on the source and take a new screenshot.

Step-by-step: translating a screenshot in Pizazoo

Disclosure: we make Pizazoo. Pizazoo for Mac (macOS 14 Sonoma or later) is a screenshot organizer. It does not take screenshots; it imports them from the folders where they land and reads their text with on-device Apple Vision OCR, so every screenshot is searchable. Translation is part of the free tier, and there are two ways to use it.

Translate the whole image in the preview

  • Select a screenshot and press Return or Space to open it full size.
  • Click Translate in the preview's controls. Pizazoo detects the source language and overlays the translated text on top of the original lines.
  • Click Translate again to go back to the original.
  • Pizazoo translates into your Mac's language unless you choose another under Translate into in Settings > Library > Translation.

Translate the extracted text in the inspector

  • Select the screenshot and open the inspector (the right-side panel). In the Extracted Text card, click Translate.
  • Pick the target language. The source shows as Auto-detect until the first translation names it.
  • Click Translate. The button shows whether the On-device or Online engine will be used.
  • Click Copy translation to use the result elsewhere.

If an on-device language isn't installed yet, Pizazoo shows a prompt to add it in System Settings > General > Language & Region > Translation Languages, with an Open Language Settings button, or a Use Google button for the online engine. The inspector's Translate button needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later.

Download Pizazoo free. Translation is included in the free tier.

Privacy: what leaves your Mac during translation?

It depends on the route:

  • Built-in Mac translation: with your languages downloaded and On-Device Mode selected, translations are processed on your Mac. Otherwise they may be processed on Apple's servers, and Safari and Siri always translate online.
  • Google Translate's website: the whole image is uploaded to Google.
  • Pizazoo, default engine: the Translation method setting in Settings > Library defaults to On-device (Apple), which uses Apple's Translation framework on macOS 15 or later. Neither the image nor its text leaves your Mac. The only related network traffic is the one-time download of a language from Apple, the same download macOS uses for its own translation.
  • Pizazoo, optional online engine: you can switch Translation method to Online (Google), which Pizazoo describes as faster and supporting more languages. It sends the recognized text, never the image, to Google's translation service, and Pizazoo asks for your consent the first time. On macOS 14 Sonoma, where Apple's translation framework for apps is not available, the preview's Translate button uses the online engine (again only after you agree) and the inspector's Translate button is hidden.

On-device translation exists for exactly this case: it lets you translate sensitive content (receipts with names and addresses, internal Slack screenshots, HR or financial documents in another language) without handing it to a third party. Leave Pizazoo on On-device (Apple) and it never does.

Pizazoo vs the Mac's built-in translation

Both use Apple's translation by default, so the privacy is the same. The differences are in the workflow:

  • No selecting. Pizazoo reads all the text in the screenshot for you, so translation is one click.
  • The whole image at once. The preview overlay translates every line in place; Live Text translates only what you select.
  • Across your whole library. Search for a word in any screenshot, then translate that one in the same window.
  • Nothing to install for the built-in route. Live Text works in Preview, Quick Look and Photos on Macs running Monterey or later, and Translate works on selectable text in most apps.

Frequently asked questions

Does translation require an internet connection?

Not once the languages are downloaded. In macOS, download them under Translation Languages in Language & Region. Pizazoo's on-device engine uses the same downloaded languages. The online engine, Safari's page translation and Google Translate's website all need a connection.

Is the translation as good as Google Translate?

Apple says offline translations "may be less accurate than translations processed using Apple servers." For short screenshot text such as interface labels, errors and receipts, try the on-device result first; for a long passage or a rare language pair, an online engine may do better. Pizazoo's optional Google engine is there for that case, with the privacy trade-off described above.

Does Pizazoo store the translated text?

No. Translations are not saved to your library. The preview overlay is cached in memory while Pizazoo is open; re-translate on demand.

Can I translate handwriting in screenshots?

If Apple's text recognition can read the handwriting (clear printed handwriting usually works; cursive is less reliable), it can be translated, in Preview and in Pizazoo.

Which languages are supported?

For Apple's translation, the list above, as long as Live Text can read the source text. Pizazoo's on-device engine uses Apple's languages; its optional Google engine covers more.

Is translation in Pizazoo free or Pro?

Free. On macOS 15 Sequoia or later it runs on-device by default. On macOS 14 Sonoma it is available only through the online engine, after you agree to it.

Can I translate a screenshot on iPhone?

Yes, with Live Text in Photos, the Translate app's camera view, or Visual Intelligence on Apple Intelligence iPhones. See how to translate a screenshot on iPhone.

Related guides

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