Back to Subtitleedit

Auto Translate

docs/features/auto-translate.md

5.1.04.3 KB
Original Source

Auto Translate

Automatically translate subtitles using various translation engines and AI services.

  • Menu: Translate → Auto-translate...
  • Shortcut: Configurable
<!-- Screenshot: Auto translate window -->

How to Use

  1. Open Translate → Auto-translate...
  2. Select a translation engine
  3. Select the source and target languages
  4. Click Translate to start
  5. Review the translations in the grid
  6. Click OK to apply

Supported Engines

  • Google Translate V1 API — Free Google Translate
  • Google Translate V2 API — Google Cloud Translation (requires API key)
  • Bing Microsoft Translator — Azure Cognitive Services (requires API key)
  • DeepL V2 translate — DeepL translation (requires API key)
  • LibreTranslate — Open-source, self-hosted translation
  • MyMemory Translate — Free translation memory
  • ChatGPT — OpenAI AI translation (requires API key)
  • LM Studio (local LLM) — Local LLM translation
  • Ollama (local LLM) — Local LLM-based translation
  • llama.cpp (local LLM) — Server-managed local LLM translation; Subtitle Edit downloads llama.cpp and a curated model (TranslateGemma, Qwen or Aya Expanse) and runs a local llama-server for you. See Using your own model to run a model we don't ship, such as TranslateGemma 27B
  • OpenAI Compatible API — Generic engine for any service exposing an OpenAI-compatible chat/completions endpoint (vLLM, KoboldCpp, a llama.cpp server on another machine, cloud providers, ...); configure URL, model, prompt, and an optional API key
  • Anthropic Claude — AI translation (requires API key)
  • Groq — AI translation (requires API key)
  • OpenRouter — AI translation (requires API key)
  • Lara — AI translation (requires API key)
  • Perplexity — AI translation (requires API key)
  • Google Gemini — AI translation (requires API key)
  • NVIDIA — AI translation (requires API key)
  • Mistral AI Translate — AI translation (requires API key)
  • DeepSeek — AI translation (requires API key)
  • Papago Translate — Naver Papago translation (requires API key)
  • thammegowda-nllb-serve — Self-hosted NLLB (No Language Left Behind) server
  • winstxnhdw-nllb-api — NLLB (No Language Left Behind) API
  • Baidu Translate — Baidu translation (requires App ID and secret)
  • CrispASR MADLAD — Local MADLAD-based translation with downloadable models (shown with size and install status); also available in Batch Convert

llama.cpp: using your own model

The models offered in the download list are deliberately kept small enough to run on an ordinary machine (around 8 GB or less). You are not limited to them — larger models such as TranslateGemma 27B work fine if your hardware can handle them.

Two ways to use one:

  1. Drop a .gguf into the models folder. Copy the file into Subtitle Edit's llama.cpp/models folder and it appears in the model list marked (custom). Subtitle Edit recognizes the model family from the file name and starts llama-server with the right chat template, so a self-downloaded TranslateGemma or Qwen quant behaves like the curated ones.
  2. Run your own server. Tick Use remote server and point Subtitle Edit at any llama-server you started yourself (the default is http://localhost:8080/v1/chat/completions). Subtitle Edit then does no model management at all.

Be aware of what a bigger model costs. TranslateGemma 27B at Q4_K_M is roughly a 16 GB download and needs about 20 GB of VRAM to run fully on the GPU — a 24 GB card in practice. Google's own figures put the 12B ahead of the Gemma 3 27B baseline, so the 12B in the download list is already a strong choice and the jump to 27B buys less than the size difference suggests.

Engine Configuration

Depending on the selected engine, you may need to provide:

  • API Key — Authentication key for cloud services
  • API URL — Custom endpoint URL (for self-hosted services)
  • Model — Specific model to use (for AI engines)

Translation Review

The translation grid shows the original text alongside the translated text. You can edit individual translations before accepting them.

Keyboard Shortcuts

KeyAction
EscapeClose / Cancel
F1Open help