Google brings real-time scroll translation to Circle to Search

Anyone who has tried browsing a foreign social feed or reading an overseas menu on their phone knows the pain: scroll down a few inches, and your translation instantly vanishes.

Google is finally fixing that friction inside Circle to Search with a continuous scrolling translation feature.

Read as you scroll

Translation is already one of the most popular uses for Circle to Search. The annoyance was that every time the screen updated or moved, you had to trigger the tool all over again.

Now, the flow is seamless. Long-press your home button or navigation bar, hit the translate icon, and select "scroll and translate." As you scroll down the feed or even jump between apps, the translated text stays live without interruption.

Google says the update is rolling out this week to Android devices, starting with select Samsung Galaxy phones.

Why it matters

This might seem like a modest UX tweak, but it dramatically changes how mobile translation feels in daily use.

For anyone following international creators or navigating foreign travel bookings, mobile reading shifts from a clunky screenshot-style interaction to a natural browsing flow. If you own an eligible Galaxy phone, this is worth using the moment the toggle appears.

We think Google is making a very smart move by baking persistent machine translation directly into the operating system shell. Traditional translation apps usually struggle to maintain continuous overlays across app switches, but Google can leverage system-level hooks to make translation feel invisible.

The real test will be performance and battery efficiency. Continuously running on-screen text recognition and live replacement while scrolling eats up compute, which likely explains why Google is limiting the initial rollout to select Samsung hardware.