Google is giving Circle to Search a practical upgrade: on-screen translation that keeps working as you scroll. Instead of re-invoking translate every time content moves, the feature now persists across long pages, carousels, and even app switches, turning Circle to Search into a fluid, system-wide reading aid for multilingual content.
What “translate as you scroll” actually does
Circle to Search already let you circle, highlight, scribble, or tap anything on your screen to look it up. The new trick overlays continuous translations directly on top of what you’re viewing and updates as the content changes. If you swipe through a photo carousel with embedded text, scroll a chat thread, or jump from a social post to a booking page, the translations follow along automatically.
Think of it as live, app-agnostic subtitles for on-screen text. It’s designed for quick comprehension rather than perfect formatting, prioritizing readability so you can keep moving without juggling share sheets or copy-paste maneuvers.
How to turn it on
To use the new flow, long-press the Home button or navigation bar to launch Circle to Search, tap the Translate icon, then enable “scroll and translate.” From there, you can navigate normally—translations will continue updating as you move through the content. If you want to return to standard search gestures, toggle the option off from the same overlay.
As before, Circle to Search supports multiple input gestures, so you can mix translating with circling or highlighting specific parts of the screen when you need more context.
Why this matters for Android users
Translation has quickly become one of the most-used actions in Circle to Search, and it makes sense: creators post in their native languages, restaurant menus and product labels often appear as images, and many shopping or bookings pages mix languages. Reducing the friction from “translate, scroll, translate again” to a single, persistent session is a notable usability win.
It also fits a broader reality of the web. W3Techs has long tracked English as the dominant language online, hovering around half of all websites, while billions of users primarily read in other languages. Research from CSA Research on digital commerce consistently shows that people are more likely to engage and purchase when content appears in their preferred language. Continuous translation lowers barriers in those everyday scenarios—whether you’re deciphering a travel post, comparing specs on a foreign retailer’s page, or following a tutorial posted in another language.
Given that Android runs on more than 3 billion active devices globally, even small interaction improvements at the OS layer can ripple into outsized behavior changes—especially in regions where multilingual browsing is the norm.
Availability and device support
Google is rolling out the enhancement on Android, starting with select Samsung Galaxy models, with broader availability to follow. As usual, features may appear in stages depending on device, region, and app compatibility.
Part of a bigger Circle to Search push
The translation update continues a steady cadence of additions. Google recently expanded AI Overviews for visual queries, enabling richer summaries when you circle a complex image or diagram. One-tap actions also arrived for phone numbers, URLs, and email addresses detected on screen, and an AI Mode lets you ask follow-up questions without leaving the overlay—useful when you need more than a simple lookup.
The pattern is clear: Circle to Search is becoming a universal layer for understanding and acting on anything visible on your phone, without app-hopping.
How it compares to other options
Mobile users already have choices—browser translation in Chrome, Gboard’s in-line translate, camera-based translation in Google Lens, and platform features like Apple’s Live Text and Safari translation. What’s different here is the system-wide, persistent overlay that tracks scrolling and app switches. You don’t have to copy text, share to another app, or re-trigger a tool when the content shifts.
Early caveats and good practices
As with any machine translation, results can vary with stylized fonts, low-resolution images, or heavy slang. Expect occasional formatting quirks on dense pages. Some translations may require connectivity, and certain protected or DRM-heavy screens may restrict what can be captured.
If you routinely work with sensitive information, remember that on-screen translation involves processing visible text; review your device and account settings and use work profiles or app-level restrictions where appropriate. For everyday browsing, though, the feature is built to be quick, transient, and focused on reading ease.
Bottom line: by letting translations keep pace with your scrolling, Google reduces the tap tax of multilingual browsing. For a tool designed to shorten the distance between “what’s on my screen” and “what I can do with it,” that’s exactly the kind of refinement that sticks.