How Message Translation Works on Stitch — and Its Limits

What message translation is for

Message translation is a Stitch Plus feature that translates a single message or media caption in place, showing the translated text directly under the original so you can compare them. It is built for the everyday situation of chatting with someone in a different language — a contact abroad, a group with members who speak different first languages, or a message you received in a language you only partly understand.

It works one message at a time, on demand. Nothing is translated automatically in the background as messages arrive.

How to translate a message

1. Long-press the message (right-click on the web) and choose Translate.
2. Under "Translate from," leave Detect Language on to auto-detect the source, or choose it yourself if detection seems wrong.
3. Under "Translate to," pick your target language — this defaults to your device or browser language.
4. Tap Translate. The result appears under the original text, with a toggle to switch back to Show Original at any time.

Why automatic language detection sometimes gets it wrong

Detect Language works by analyzing the text itself, which means it needs enough content to work with. Very short messages, single words, slang, emoji-only messages, or text that mixes two languages in the same sentence give the detector little to go on and can be misidentified. If a translation reads strangely or clearly used the wrong source language, reopen the translation sheet and pick the source language yourself instead of relying on detection.

What data actually gets sent, and why there are limits

Translation only sends the specific message or caption you chose to translate — not your other messages, not your contact list, not any other part of the conversation. That single piece of text is sent to translate it and produce the one result you asked for.

To keep the service fast and reliable for everyone, there is a daily limit per account on how many translations can be requested, and results may be cached and reused rather than re-generated every time. If you hit the daily limit, wait and try again later — it resets the next day.

The honest limits of automatic translation

Message translation supports many languages — not all languages that exist, and the exact list depends on what the underlying translation service currently supports. Even within supported languages, automatic translation is not perfect: idioms, slang, sarcasm, technical terminology, and context-dependent phrasing can all come out wrong or oddly literal. Treat a translation as a helpful guide to what someone probably meant, not a certified or guaranteed rendering of their exact words.

For anything where precision genuinely matters — a legal, medical, or otherwise high-stakes conversation — do not rely on an in-app automatic translation as the final word.

Getting better results

• Give the detector full sentences rather than single words or short fragments when possible.
• If a translation looks off, try manually selecting the source language rather than trusting auto-detect.
• Remember the toggle between original and translated text — it is there specifically so you (or the other person, if they check) can compare and catch anything that seems mistranslated.
• Message translation requires an active Stitch Plus subscription; without one, tapping Translate points you to Stitch Plus instead of running a translation.

Translating in a multilingual group chat

Translation becomes especially useful in a group where members have different first languages — rather than the group settling on one common language everyone is less comfortable in, each person can read messages translated into whatever language suits them, while still writing in their own. It is worth remembering that translation happens on the reader's side, one message at a time — there is no group-wide setting that translates everything automatically for everyone, so each member decides for themselves which messages to translate.

What happens when you hit the daily limit

If you reach the daily translation limit, tapping Translate again simply will not produce a new result until the limit resets — you will not be charged extra or locked out of anything else in the app, and your Stitch Plus subscription is not affected. The limit exists to keep the underlying translation service fast and reliable for every subscriber, not as a way to push you toward a higher tier; if you regularly translate a very high volume of messages in a single day, spacing requests across the day (or prioritizing which messages genuinely need translating) is the practical workaround rather than something the limit is designed to be worked around at all.