ScreenLingo is an Android prototype for translating Chinese text in apps that do not let you select it. Tap the floating lens, then tap a highlighted line to translate, copy, or hear it without saving a screenshot or leaving the current app.
- Download the APK from the latest GitHub release.
- If v0.1.0 or v0.1.1 is already installed, uninstall it first. Those builds used different temporary signing keys, so Android cannot install an update over them. This removes the downloaded offline language pack.
- Open the APK on the phone and allow installation from the browser or file manager when Samsung asks.
- Open ScreenLingo and tap Open accessibility settings.
- On Samsung, open Accessibility → Installed apps → ScreenLingo translation lens and turn it on.
- Return to ScreenLingo and download the offline Chinese → English language pack. In mainland China this one-time download may require a VPN.
- Tap the floating 译 lens from any app. Tap a highlighted Chinese line to translate or hear it.
If the offline pack cannot be downloaded, the optional keyless fallback sends only the line you tap—not the screenshot—to MyMemory. Leave it off for fully local use.
- Android accessibility text appears immediately when an app exposes it.
- Bundled Chinese OCR fills gaps from WeChat mini-programs and custom-rendered screens.
- OCR happens in memory; screenshots are never saved.
- Only the line you tap is translated, and recent translations are cached.
- After the one-time language-pack download, translation and speech work on-device.
- Requires Android 11 or newer.
- Banking, payment, DRM, and other secure screens can block capture.
- The overlay freezes the current screen; close and rescan after scrolling.
- Translation is Chinese → English for this first build.
- Release APKs from v0.1.2 onward use a persistent signing key for in-place updates. They are for personal testing, not Play Store distribution.
./gradlew test assembleDebugThe debug APK is written to app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk. Tagged releases use the repository signing secrets to build app/build/outputs/apk/release/app-release.apk.
The service runs only after the user explicitly enables it. It scans only when the floating lens is tapped, ignores password fields, processes images in memory, and never saves screen captures. The online fallback is optional and disclosed before use.
MIT