# Mollu — Translate your screen in place

> Translate your screen in place (iPhone/iPad app by MINSIK KIM.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mollu/id6815125230 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [MINSIK KIM](https://appshunter.io/developer/1828565083)
- Category: Utilities
- Price: Free
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 26.0 · 59 MB
- Languages: American English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified, China), Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan)
- Released: 2026-09-25
- Data updated: 2026-11-06

## What is Mollu?

Japanese games, Chinese shopping apps, posts from anywhere. Translate your screen, or the text in front of you, right where it is.

Mollu reads the text in a screenshot or a photo you take and draws the translation over the original text, so the screen still looks like the app you were using. No copying, pasting, or switching apps.

■ Great for
Games and manga from abroad, foreign social media and forums, product pages on overseas stores, chats with friends overseas, menus and signs while traveling, and settings screens in other languages.

■ One press to translate
Assign it to the Action button, AssistiveTouch (a floating on-screen button), Control Center, or Siri. Whatever app you're in, the translated screen appears instantly, and closing it takes you right back. On iPhone models without the Action button and on iPad, one tap on AssistiveTouch does it; on iPad, Apple Pencil Pro squeeze works too.

■ Snap to translate
Take a photo of a menu, sign, or ticket and the translation opens right away. Tilted text is translated at the right angle, line by line, and tables are translated cell by cell. Move in close and the camera switches to ultra-wide macro automatically (on supported models), and you can pinch to zoom. Open Translate with Camera straight from Siri, Spotlight, or Shortcuts.

■ In place, naturally
Translations are drawn on a matching background so the screen reads like the original. Pinch to zoom, switch between original and translation, or share.

■ Every sentence, one tap away
Tap a sentence to see the original and translation together and copy them, have it read aloud, add it to your glossary, or retranslate the screen with AI.

■ Read as a list
For long screens, see every translation as a list, copy it all, or have it read aloud.

■ Glossary
Add character names, station names, and other proper nouns, and they're always translated the same way.

■ On-device and free
By default Mollu uses Apple's on-device translation. Once language packs are downloaded it works offline, and your screen never leaves your device.

■ When you want more natural translations (optional)
Connect Claude, GPT, or Gemini with your own API key for context-aware translation. Mollu asks for your consent first and sends only the recognized text, never the image.

■ Private history
History stays on your device and is excluded from iCloud backups. You can search it by sentence, it's deleted automatically after the period you choose (7 days by default), and you can lock it with Face ID.

Languages: Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Arabic, Dutch, Hindi, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian
(Some language pairs require Apple translation language packs.)

## Is Mollu safe?

Not enough ratings yet to assess Mollu.

## Is Mollu legit?

Mollu has limited verification signals. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Mollu is 58 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.


## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.2.3 — 2026-10-13

• Better at identifying the source language of tricky text, such as Korean headlines with Hanja, kana in emoticons (ツ, ノ), and kanji-only signs on Japanese screens.
• Vertical manga pages without app menus are read more accurately.
• Korean, Japanese, and Chinese glossary terms are no longer replaced inside other words.
• When a translation is the same as the original or AI Translation fails, Mollu tells you what to do next.
• Shortening Keep History now asks before deleting items.
• On supported iPads, Translate with Camera works while other apps are open alongside Mollu.
• If your device language isn't supported, Mollu appears in English.
• "ChatGPT" is now labeled "GPT", matching the OpenAI API it uses.
• Fixed cut-off messages when there's nothing to translate, and improved the contrast of some labels.

### 1.2.2 — 2026-10-01

• Smarter about what to translate on screens in your own language: channel names, links, and icons stay as they are, and small speech bubbles in comics shared in chats are now translated.
• Lines that mix Korean with other text are read more accurately.
• Translations of speech bubbles whose text touches the outline now stay inside the bubble.
• Zoom in further on long scrolling captures until the text is readable.
• Screens you retranslate with AI are saved to History.
• Closing the viewer now stops a translation in progress.
• "LLM" is now called "AI Translation".
• Added Settings → Open Source Licenses.
• Fixed a crash with very narrow images, sentences disappearing while repairing garbled text, and deleted history items that could come back.

### 1.2.1 — 2026-09-30

• Zoom in further on long scrolling captures until the text is readable.
• Screens you retranslate with AI are saved to History.
• Closing the viewer now stops a translation in progress.
• "LLM" is now called "AI Translation".
• Added Settings → Open Source Licenses.
• Fixed a crash with very narrow images, sentences disappearing while repairing garbled text, and deleted history items that could come back.

### 1.2.0 — 2026-09-26

• Mollu now has its own text recognition model built in. It reads handwritten manga dialogue and text in games and social apps more accurately, and results vary less between iOS versions.
• Manga: each speech bubble is translated as one piece, and the translation is written horizontally inside the bubble. Small furigana is no longer translated separately.
• Translations on chips, buttons, and bubbles stay inside them instead of covering neighboring items or borders.
• Paragraphs that contain links are translated as one paragraph instead of in pieces.
• If you use Mollu in English, Japanese, or Chinese, the Shortcut template now comes in that language.
• Long scrolling screenshots stitched from several screens are now read and translated all the way down.
• Korean translations no longer wrap in the middle of a word.
• Translations in tight spots such as buttons, chat bubbles, and table cells shrink less, and text on pill-shaped labels fills the label.
• While translating, Mollu shows whether it is reading the text or translating it.
• Camera: Mollu tells you when a photo couldn't be taken or another app is using the camera.
• The last setup screen shows whether your translate button and language packs are ready.
• Copying from a sentence card now shows a confirmation.
• Deleting a single translation now asks first, and VoiceOver reads each item's language and first sentence.
• One-character interjections in manga and games, such as “え？”, are now translated.
• If a translation comes back with garbled characters, Mollu retranslates it to fix them.
• Fixed short Chinese labels being translated as Japanese, “Some sentences couldn't be translated” appearing because of stray text in photos, and more.

### 1.1.1 — 2026-09-26

• On iPhone models without the Action button, Mollu now guides you to translate with the floating AssistiveTouch button.
• If a language pack is missing, the shortcut can open Mollu so you can download it right away.
• Camera: switches to ultra-wide macro automatically up close, and supports pinch to zoom.
• Tap a sentence to read it aloud, add it to the glossary, or retranslate the screen with an LLM.
• Search your translation history, and touch and hold an item to share, save, or delete it.
• Choose “Translate with Camera” directly in Shortcuts, Spotlight, and Siri.
• Added Arabic, Dutch, Hindi, Polish, Turkish, and Ukrainian as translation languages.
• LLM translation retries once when the service is busy, and Gemini 3 and later respond faster.
• Translation boxes cover the original more cleanly: they no longer hide nearby times and numbers, and vertical text and text on pill-shaped labels no longer shows through.
• When you choose a source language, short sentences are translated from that language too (French menus were detected as English).
• Fixed Chinese screens translated as Japanese, posts with mentions not being translated, partial failures not being reported, and more.

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-11-06.*