DeskTranslate

A Windows screen translator that reads text locally and displays translations in an overlay, with Ollama, LM Studio or cloud translation providers.

DeskTranslate translates text visible in games, videos, menus and images for people who want to read it without switching applications. It can translate a single selection or follow changing dialogue in a chosen screen region.

Live screen translation: Watch a dialogue area for new text, or attach the region to an application window so it follows movement and resizing.
Local and cloud translation: Use local AI through Ollama or LM Studio, a self-hosted LibreTranslate server, or cloud services including Google, DeepL, OpenAI, Claude and Gemini.
Dialogue context: AI translation can use recent lines, approved glossary terms and story notes to keep names and terminology consistent; profiles save separate settings for games and shows.
Subtitle overlay: Adjust text appearance, placement and source/translation layout, with click-through behavior that lets the underlying game receive mouse input.

DeskTranslate is open source under the MIT license and runs on Windows x64, primarily Windows 11, as an installed or portable app. OCR runs locally on the CPU through RapidOCR/ONNX, with optional Tesseract support. Local AI translation needs a separate model server; DeskTranslate doesn't download LLMs or automatically switch local requests to the cloud.

Screenshots stay in memory. Cloud providers receive recognized text and any configured context, never screenshots. API keys stay in the Windows credential vault, and the app has no analytics.

Capture regions must stay visible and fit within one monitor. Covered or minimized windows pause capture. Recognition can make errors, rapid subtitles may outpace processing, and translation quality depends on the chosen provider or model.