How to Translate a Web Page in Chrome (Whole Page or Just a Selection)

What's the quickest way to translate a page in Chrome?

Open the page, look at the right side of the address bar for the Translate icon, and click it. Chrome detects the page's language and offers to translate it into your preferred language; click Translate to swap the whole page, or choose a different language from the dropdown first.

If the icon doesn't appear, right-click anywhere on the page and select Translate to [your language] from the context menu. Both methods use Chrome's built-in translation, which has replaced the old Google Translate extension for whole-page translation since Chrome 88.

How do you translate an entire webpage in Chrome?

Whole-page translation is built into Chrome and needs no extension. It works on any page written in a language Chrome recognizes, and it keeps the page's original layout, links and images in place.

1. Open the page you want to translate.
2. Look at the right of the address bar and select the Translate icon.
3. If the icon isn't visible, right-click anywhere on the page and choose Translate to [Language].
4. Pick your preferred language from the dropdown that appears.
5. If the translation doesn't run automatically, refresh the page and try again.

You can also go directly to translate.google.com, select Websites at the top, and paste in the page's URL. This is useful when a site blocks Chrome's in-page translate icon or when you want to send a translated link to someone else.

How do you translate just a section or a few words?

Translating an entire page is overkill if you only need one sentence or a product label understood. Chrome can translate a highlighted selection without touching the rest of the page.

1. Open the page you want to read.
2. Highlight the text you want translated.
3. Right-click the highlighted text.
4. Select Translate selection to [Language].

Why can't I translate a page on Chrome?

The most common cause is that translation is switched off in Chrome's settings, or the page is already detected as being in your preferred language, so Chrome sees nothing to translate.

• Translate is turned off: check Settings and re-enable it (steps in the next section).
• Page already matches your language: Chrome only offers translation when it detects a different language than your preferred one.
• Unsupported or mixed-language content: pages with very little text, heavy image content, or a mix of languages can fail language detection.
• The icon didn't load: refresh the page; the translate icon sometimes needs the page to fully load first.
• PDF or app-like pages: some in-browser PDF viewers and web apps don't expose translatable text the same way a normal page does.

How do you turn translation on and set a default language?

Chrome's translate behavior is controlled from the Languages settings page, where you can turn the feature on or off entirely and choose which language pages get translated into.

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, select More → Settings.
3. On the left, select Languages.
4. Under "Google Translate," turn Use Google Translate on or off.
5. Still under "Google Translate," select Translate into this language to change your default target language.

The same Languages page lets you add or reorder Preferred languages and set which languages Chrome automatically translates without asking, under "Automatically translate these languages." On a Chromebook, some of these settings live under the device's own Chromebook language management instead of Chrome's own menu.

Is the Google Translate Chrome extension still worth installing?

Page translation used to require the Google Translate extension, but Google moved that capability natively into Chrome starting with version 2.14 of the extension. The extension itself now focuses on translating text you highlight or right-click, rather than whole pages.

If you only need occasional whole-page translation, Chrome's built-in tool already covers it for free. Reach for an extension when you want a different translation engine, a bilingual layout, or translation inside PDFs and subtitles that Chrome's native feature doesn't touch.

How do you get a bilingual, side-by-side translation instead of replacing the page?

Chrome's built-in translate replaces the original text with the translated version, which makes it hard to compare wording or learn a language while reading. A bilingual extension keeps both versions visible instead.

Immersive Translate is built specifically for this: it inserts the translated line beneath or beside each original paragraph, so you can read both at once. This matters most for language learners, translators checking accuracy, or anyone reading technical or legal text where a mistranslation is costly.

Can Chrome translate audio or captions live on a page?

Yes. Chrome's Translate icon includes a Live Translate option for pages with spoken audio or video, which translates captions in near real time rather than translating static text on the page.

This is separate from subtitle translation inside a video player itself; Chrome's Live Translate works on the page's audio track. For sites that already provide their own subtitles, an extension like Immersive Translate can translate those subtitle files directly instead of relying on Chrome's live captioning.

Does page translation work the same on Android, iPhone and Chromebook?

The core translate feature exists across platforms, but where you find the controls, and whether extensions are available at all, changes by device.