Camera Translator

Camera Translator turns the text in front of you into text you can read. Point the camera at a menu, a street sign, a ticket machine or a product label, and the translation appears over the frame. Both halves of the job — reading the letters and translating them — run on your phone. Your photos and your words never leave it.

📷 Point and read
• Hold the camera over the text and tap once
• The translation is drawn over the frame, in place
• Tap Show original at any time to see the untouched text again
• The frame freezes so you can read without a shaky hand
• Tap a block to copy the original or the translation
• Camera light for dim restaurants and car parks

🖼 Translate a photo you have
Pick a picture with the system photo picker — a screenshot of a booking, a photo of a label, a page you saved. Same pipeline, same overlay, same copy buttons. The picker needs no storage permission, and the app never browses your gallery on its own.

💬 Two-way conversation
A screen split into two panels, one facing each person. Each side types in their own language and reads the other side translated. Text only: this app has no microphone permission and records nothing.

🌐 Language packs, downloaded once
Translation needs a language pack on the device. You pick the language, see roughly how big the pack is, and tap Download — nothing downloads on its own. Wi-Fi only is on by default so a pack never arrives over roaming data. Once a pack is on the phone, that language works with no connection at all: airplane mode, a basement, a foreign SIM you have not set up yet. Packs you no longer need can be deleted.

🔒 Nothing leaves your phone
Recognition uses Google ML Kit on the device. Translation uses ML Kit's on-device models. There is no server, no account and no sign-in. The only time the app uses the internet is while a language pack is downloading, and the only thing that travels then is the pack itself. Nothing you photograph or type is uploaded.

🕘 History, kept on the device
Every translation is saved locally so you can find that menu again later. Star the ones you want to keep, share or copy them, delete single entries, or switch history off entirely — turning it off also deletes what was already saved.

🔤 Scripts it can read
Latin, Korean, Japanese and Chinese characters are recognised on the device. The translation language list is separate and much longer — it is whatever ML Kit offers, from Arabic to Vietnamese.

⚠️ Honest about the limits
This is machine translation. It can be wrong about context, tone and specialised terms. Do not rely on it for medical, legal or safety-critical text — ask a person instead. Recognition works best on clear printed text; handwriting, stylised signs, curved packaging and low light often fail. The app says this in plain words the first time you open it, not only here.

Free, with a banner ad and an occasional full-screen ad. One purchase removes them.

Recent changes:
Added a visible scrollbar on long lists; minor UI polish.