Gmail’s Mobile App Is Finally Translating Emails. Here’s How It Works

Mobile users will be able to read translated emails in Gmail with a click.

James Martin/CNET

Google is officially adding a translation option for Gmail mobile users, the company said in a blog post Tuesday. If you’ve been using a web-based translation tool to convert Gmail messages on your phone, you’ll soon be able to convert those emails to a chosen language within the app. The feature began a gradual rollout for Android on Aug. 8 with iOS to follow starting Aug. 21, for all personal and Google Workspace accounts. 

Translation has been available for the web version of Gmail in more than 100 languages, and the tech giant says the mobile app will include multiple languages, but it didn’t specify the amount. You’ll also have the ability to toggle the option to “always translate or never translate specific languages.” Here’s how the built-in feature works on mobile devices. 

Access the translation tool in Gmail mobile

When you open an email that’s been sent in a foreign language, you’ll see an auto-generated Translate banner at the top of the Gmail message. Click it to have your email translated, or select X to reject the option. Google notes that if you decline the translation, the banner will pop up again if you receive more emails that contain a language that differs from your preset Google display language. Your display language can be found in the settings menu under “Language & region.”

Google says to look for the “dismissible banner” in your Gmail email messages.

Google

You can also use the three-dot menu to manually translate an email and choose your preferred language in Settings. If you’d rather shut off Google’s translation option, there are two ways to do it. Either click the prompt that says don’t translate again, when the rejection banner pops up, or navigate to Gmail’s translation settings section and select “Don’t translate again.”

To learn more about using your Google account, check out our tips for Gmail and Google Drive and for using a passkey to log in to Google.