---
id: googletrans
version: "4.0.2"
license: unclear
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# googletrans — An unofficial Google Translate API for Python

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 5.5M/mo

## What it is and what it does

Googletrans is an unofficial Python client for Google Translate that works by reverse-engineering Google's web API rather than using the official paid API. It provides translation, language detection, and bulk translation capabilities with async support and HTTP/2 enabled by default through httpx.

The library is designed for developers who need free, unlimited translation without official API costs, but comes with important caveats: it has a 15k character limit per request, relies on web scraping that Google could block at any time, and offers no stability guarantees. It includes a command-line tool, customizable service URLs, proxy support, and complete type hints. The package is compatible with Python 3.8 and later.

Use it for:

- Translate user-generated content or bulk text batches in applications where cost is a primary concern.
- Detect the language of incoming text to route it to appropriate processing pipelines.
- Build multilingual chatbots or support systems that need real-time translation without official API overhead.
- Add translation features to educational tools or desktop applications targeting end users.
- Prototype translation workflows before committing to Google's official paid API.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Googletrans translates text and detects languages by calling Google Translate's web API, with support for async operations and bulk translations.

Yes, if you accept the stability trade-offs. Googletrans is actively maintained, has low install friction, and works well for prototyping or cost-sensitive use cases. However, do not use it for production systems requiring guaranteed uptime—Google can block your IP or change its API at any time. For mission-critical translation, use Google's official API instead.

## Install

pip install googletrans
uv add googletrans
poetry add googletrans

## Installing googletrans

Before you install: Low install friction with a single runtime dependency (httpx). The package is actively maintained with a recent commit on 2026-08-08 and has been in production use since its first release in 2017.

License in practice: Licensed under the MIT License (permissive), allowing free use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install googletrans

import asyncio
from googletrans import Translator

async def main():
    async with Translator() as translator:
        result = await translator.translate('Hello', dest='es')
        print(result.text)

asyncio.run(main())

Requires Python 3.8 or later. Google may block your IP if making excessive requests; service URLs can be customized to mitigate this.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the token-generation mechanism remains stable against Google's ongoing API changes and IP-blocking policies.
- Current reliability and uptime guarantees given the disclaimer that this is an unofficial web API client.

## Package facts

- License: not declared (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 5.5M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

google translate api python, language translation library, detect language python, bulk text translation, async translation, free translation service, language detection, translation, language-detection, async-support

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/googletrans) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/googletrans/)