Live translated captions for desktop meeting apps, games, media players, and any audio playing outside your browser.
Chrome tabs capture the sound from web meetings, YouTube, and browser-based webinars. Everything else on your computer—the Zoom desktop client, Microsoft Teams installed natively, Discord voice channels, a language learning app, a game with voiced dialogue, VLC playing a foreign film, Spotify streaming a podcast—lives outside that ecosystem. Those applications produce audio that a browser extension cannot hear directly, which is why Translext asks Chrome to share your entire screen with system audio turned on.
Chrome bundles computer sound with screen sharing because that is the only mechanism the browser offers to capture system-level audio. Translext disables the video feed immediately and sends only the sound stream for translation. You see live captions in a small floating window that stays on top of whichever application is playing audio. Spoken translation works here too: Translext removes its own voice from the sound it captures, so it never hears and translates itself.
Desktop meeting applications install outside the browser because they offer features web clients sometimes lack: gallery view tweaks, virtual backgrounds, local recording, or simple IT policy. Games render dialogue and voiceover through their own engines. Media players stream foreign-language films and series. Podcast apps pull in interviews and panel discussions. Language exchange platforms connect you to native speakers over VoIP. None of these emit sound into a Chrome tab, so browser-based translation cannot reach them. Computer audio mode bridges that gap by routing system sound through the same real-time translation pipeline that handles tab audio. The floating caption window moves freely across your desktop, positioning itself wherever you need it while Zoom, a game cutscene, or a media player occupies the rest of the screen.
Click the Translext icon, choose Computer audio, pick your source and target languages, then start. Chrome prompts you to share a window, application window, or entire screen; select the Entire screen thumbnail representing your full desktop. Below the thumbnails, a checkbox reads Share system audio—switch it on. Click Share. Chrome now streams both the picture and the sound from your computer to the extension. Translext immediately stops processing the video frames and extracts only the audio track, which is sent to a real-time speech translation service for transcription and translation. The caption window appears as a compact overlay. On Windows and ChromeOS, this process is immediate. On macOS 14.2 or later, the browser must be granted permission under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording before it can capture computer sound.
Chrome shares your screen because the browser does not offer a way to capture system audio alone. Translext turns off the video stream the moment it starts, so no image data is transmitted or stored. Only the audio waveform travels to a speech translation service for real-time transcription and translation. Translext doesn't keep the audio; the translated text appears in your session history, which you can delete or switch off in settings. No audio is recorded, and no meeting bots join your calls. The floating caption window is visible only to you. Anyone sharing their screen with you in a meeting will not see the Translext overlay unless you choose to share your own screen outward, in which case the caption window will appear in your broadcast just as any other window would.
No. Chrome on Linux does not offer the Share system audio option when you choose a screen share source, so the browser cannot capture computer sound. Computer audio mode is available on Windows, ChromeOS, and macOS 14.2 or later. On macOS, you must grant Chrome permission under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording before the browser can access system audio. If you use Linux, you can still translate audio from browser tabs or from a microphone, but desktop applications will remain out of reach.
Chrome only bundles system audio with the Entire screen share option. If you select a single application window or a specific Chrome tab from the share picker, the Share system audio checkbox disappears, and the browser captures no sound. This is a platform limitation, not a Translext design choice. Translext disables the video feed immediately after you click Share, so even though you select Entire screen, no image data is processed or sent for translation. Only the audio stream is extracted and routed to the translation service.
Yes. Click and drag the caption window anywhere on your desktop. It remains on top of other applications so you can position it beside a meeting video, below a game's dialogue box, or above a media player's controls. The window does not resize automatically, but you can adjust its dimensions by dragging the edges or corners if your operating system allows. The caption text wraps to fit the width you choose. The window persists across application switches, so you can alt-tab between a meeting app and a browser without losing sight of the captions.
Yes. Translext hears what your computer plays, so captions only appear while the app is actually producing sound. If you pause the video, mute the meeting app or close it, captions stop until sound comes back, and a long silence ends the session to save your minutes. Whether turning your speaker volume down also affects the shared sound varies by system, so try it with the free sound test in Options → Audio Source before an important call.
Computer audio mode captures all system sound mixed together, so if a meeting app and a music player both produce audio simultaneously, Translext hears the combined stream. The transcription will attempt to recognize speech from the mixture, which often results in fragmented captions or missed words because overlapping voices and music confuse the speech recognition engine. For clean captions, close or mute applications you are not actively translating. If you need to translate sound from a specific browser tab while other desktop apps run, use Tab audio mode instead.
Translated captions and optional audio translation for online meetings, video calls and videos — in Chrome or any app on your computer. No bots to invite, nothing to upload.